Appreciateyour insight as always but wow, not my take at all and I hardly think this will destroy Trump or the MAGA movement. That said, if it's not all a set up it's embarrassing as hell for both of them to have such public tantrums. Time will tell I guess.
trump has now lost the initiative and broken his core alliance.
it will not be the end of MAGA, that populist base will follow him. but this cost him the real gains in the center and the durable social change he could have created.
so many of his really effective people were in the DOGE orbit.
I never had high expectations of Trump, but the reality is that no politician is willing to actually get the deficit under control because this requires significant increases to taxes and major cuts to spending, particularly to entitlements. In other words, you have to piss everyone off, including senior citizens, who are the most powerful electoral block in the country. The BBB completely caves on taxes and has limited cuts to spending that are simply not sufficient to make up for the difference. However, the problem for a voter is that a Harris administration would likely have been even worse.
I don't understand why entitlements (so-called) have to be cut. Why not cut the military, the pentagon, the DOE, DOD, DARPA? Why not have 100 military bases instead of 900?
All of the above...SS without the enormous fraud wouldn't be a problem, and would be in the black...And it would be easy to cut half the Pentagon's budget...Russia has a superior military on 1/10 of what America spends...
I'm all for cutting defense spending as well, but entitlements have to be cut because that's where both the majority of current spending and future growth in spending is coming from.
I agree in spending military different and even reduce it. Lets start by not pretending Offensive Spending is Defence. As long as we want to project power so that corruption and soak most of the money, this will continue.
Then increase the benefits of veterans and active duty soldiers. No solider and their family should need to be on food stamps/SNAP benefits. Sad.
So, I have to say military cuts would probably help with the "entitlement" program as well. As you surely know if taxes for SS were levied over the $166,000/yr income point, SS would not be in trouble. If the gov't stopped using SS and "entitlement" programs as a piggy bank, SS would probably also not be in trouble.
although this is long, you might want to read it. It explains what is covered by the word "entitlements". I will put this in 2 replies, because it's too unwieldy to try to read here. First I'll print the compensation to military employees. Then I'll make a second comment that addresses the part everyone thinks they are familiar with.
Similar to its civilian counterpart, compensation of the military (active duty and reserve) consists of wages and salaries and supplements to wages and salaries.
Wages and salaries include monetary remuneration of the military and in-kind compensation such as housing allowances, uniform allowances, and rations.
Employer contributions for employee pension and insurance funds include federal contributions to the defined-benefit pension plan for the military recorded on an accrual basis.2 Payments for government social insurance for old-age, survivors, disability insurance (social security) and hospital insurance (Medicare Part A), unemployment insurance, and veterans life insurance.
Employer contributions to the privately administered Service Group Life Insurance.
Payments for health care benefits received by active duty personnel and their dependents at nonmilitary facilities through the program known as TRICARE.3
Beginning with 2002, military compensation also includes payments by the Department of Defense for accrual funding of health care benefits for retirees. Please see, "Defined Benefit Pensions and Household Income and Wealth," and the FAQ “What changes were made to pensions during the 2013 comprehensive revision, and how have the changes affected private, federal, and state and local compensation?” for information on the accrual approach to measuring defined-benefit pension plans.
If you want a volunteer army rather than conscription, you must provide incentives for people to join and stay in. I’m sure that there is waste and fraud that could be removed, and I’m all for that, but if you take away the perks for being a soldier, very few people would enlist.
I saw your posts. Are you familiar with the math of the budget? Yes, cutting some military spend will lead to some follow-on savings in mandatory spending associated with defense. The problem is that the scale of savings is simply too small. All total mandatory spending associated with the military was $264BB in 2024. That's a drop in the bucket when total federal spending during that time period is $6.8T dollars. Also, defense spending as a % of GDP for the US has been trending down over the past several decades, so it's already being reduced over time.
And putting SS payroll taxes on all incomes only closes ~50% of SS's funding shortfall. This is a nice political talking point that's similar to the claims about cutting waste and fraud. It all sounds good, but the math simply doesn't work.
The government over the last 75 years has created this mess. We did not have a say in how our tax dollars were spent or redistributed. We cannot expect the same clowns (politicians) to fix the very mess they claim doesn't really exist.
Yes, also a Distraction from that -- and from another huge event:
I followed this feud but then realized even more important things were going on (I don't want to minimize our economic situation, however, or a loss of the potential alliance of tech, fin bros, populsim):
June 1: Ukraine's Operation Spirderweb hit Russia's nuclear triad and killed civilians. The amounts are not critical -- and probably amount to 10 TU 95 planes and 130 casualities. But it shocked and hit a raw nerve in Russia this time.
Pompeo (unrecongnizably thin now, face changed) spoke at the Black Sea meeting, organized by Ukr. on 31 May, and he was passionate (unlike him) and bellicose. He spoke ONE DAY before the drones hit Russia successfully. Neocons have simply moved over to the EU for now- ? Chatham House/Germany/France...
The "Ukraine led" operation happened, it succeeded and the war will ramp up.
It also happened a day before the next round of negotiations in Turkey.
"Timing is everything."
Grahm and Blumenthal were in Kiev the night before the Spiderweb strikes.
WHO IS RUNNING OUR FOREIGN POLICY?
If Trump was complicit, Russia is through with him.
If he wasn't -- as he claims --he is irrelevant bc someone else is running the show.
Huge loss in the Ukraine theater. Big trouble ahead.
This is so significant... CIA/ MI6 op according to John Helm.
Nonetheless, we are caught in the jaws of economic crisis and war. We need to act without any more illusions.
I feel for the alliance --seemingly powerful --Gato sees lost here, meanwhile.
Breakup to makeup? Right now it appears unlikely. But anything is possible in this arena -- especially with these two!
______
One wonders what effect factories going up in ravaged heartland areas could have -- to give America a boost?
And the UK deal was supposed to be a kind of model...
Trump with Russia appears to be almost unreadable for the public. All over the place. BUT, like electricity/magnetic force you can understand something better when it is applied:
Putin has now called his hand with the current memorandum. See johnhelmer.net for analysis and terms.
Best foreign correspondent living in Russia, for decades. Aussie/Harvard.
Russia has given Trump weeks, not months, to accept their terms. They claim they are "stretching the peace effort to the limit." (Lavrov)
(A digression: I know his makeup artist -- a very good woman, she worked on The Apprentice and Trump for 11 years -- she spends a fortune feeding ducks on the Hudson River here in NYC! I ran on the pathway there and we got to know each other -- a while back. She has many stories. A man more good than bad, with a heart, she came to believe.)
The Elon Incident: the timing is an accident? Nothing in our lifetime (post WW2) compares with the scope, ambition and meaning of this SPIDERWEB attack; it changes all realities in our world now, as Helmer states -- this strike deep into Russia: 5 targets, all nuclear triad. It is a Pearl Harbor. (Mertz in White House was about this.)
There are many of us who voted for Trump who were not MAGA. We voted against the insane Democrat agenda. And we put our personal reputations on the line thinking TDS was a virus and Trump was actually going to drain the swamp this time bc he learned how to fight it during Trump 1.0.. We also believed Elon, David Sacks, et al. would not be stupid enough to ruin their credibility. Oh, how wrong we were.
Same here. I couldn’t let those monsters back in. I’m over politics. It’s on the surface like an oil slick —they ALL hate us and don’t care a rats patootie about those who gave them this power or the worker ants I guess we are at this point. Easy to crush.
Could you think on what this large of a distraction may be hiding? Trump admits this is his MO.... get people looking in one direction while he does what he wants somewhere else.
Interesting...... lots of dots. But Trump already inferred he has washed his hands of them. Isn't that why the neocons are over there trying to do their own thing to stir up more fighting, because Trump won't? I'm wondering if there isn't something in that BBB that the PTB want to keep under wraps? ? Where have Vance, Witkoff, and Grenell been? Anything happening in finance?
Trump... hard to read. His style is to create confusion before he settles, and use a hammer when he can. He seems to be working inside a structure he is simulataneously trying to dismantle...he pulls on it, it pulls back. The judges are just one example.
It is all so dynamic right now-- "war is the most dynamic of all events." Kinetic and economic wars, both.
Still the mathematical end game for a credit-based economy is collapse; and Russia can't lose -- not alone, bc everyone would lose. He has his work cut out for him. (Love him, hate him -- this is the toughest job on the planet at the moment.)
Spiderweb: the Russians did not see it coming, American citizens did not, Trump and Rubio stated they were not informed beforehand --but Russia believes DJT knew, and the neocons had many years of momentum going in Ukr when he came into office, and all the EU relationships. Pompeo's Black Sea speech on 31 May, a day before the strikes, tells volumes.
This is the thinnest ice we have walked on in my lifetime, imo.
Russia wants a public acknowledgement by Trump that he allowed this to happen, or their response will be "strategic." With acknowledgement, less harsh.
On the economic front, clearly Trump makes very big and threatening moves and it all feels like it is in free fall at times. Then he gets a deal like the UK one. He did say once that the only way to affect real change on a global scale was to 'blow it all up' -- meaning use the tariffs across the board, as leverage. (I know Gato disagrees, here. I remain uncertain this will fail more than a continuation of what we had -- the toilet.)
No question neocons arepressing hard to stay the course of war... and yet it seems like Trump's own team flows with them for now: they seek victory, he seeks " a negotiated peace through strength" as far as we can tell. He and Mertz repeated this several times. "Peace through strength." (Sounds great...Bridge for sale?)
Well...here is something that gives a perspective on the whole situation re USA/EU breakup and EU and Russia. (The writer is hit and miss, but worth watching. Financial-geopolitical thinker. Sometimes he nails things:)
"The EU is correct that if Ukraine falls, there goes Europe. However, that does NOT mean Russia invades Europe. There is NOTHING there worth taking. Instead, the collapse of Ukraine is more about the collapse of the Western political hegemony. This will lead to the crumbling of the EU internally with division – not some invasion by Putin.
N.B.>> "... The collapse of Ukraine really means the collapse of European debt, and the division will erupt just as you see in the American Democratic Party and its internal Civil War."
They need the war to survive, to stay in power as the EU. If the Russians win -- and for them they must -- the current EU power structure will not survive. (The BRICS with every new day we survive all this may well offer a real alternative to Western dominance.)
Ukr is about remaining dominant for the West -- and Western power means the Atlanticist Alliance.
I repeat John Helmer's words:
Nothing in our lifetime (post WW2) compares with the scope, ambition and meaning of this SPIDERWEB attack; it changes all realities in our world now, as Helmer states -- this strike deep into Russia: 5 targets, all nuclear triad. It is a Pearl Harbor.
In the aftermath, now, its all about winning escalation dominance. Russia must do what Iran did -- show their power now that they appear vulnerable.
BTW, I'm a flamenco guitarist (etc) who reads a lot, and once in a while I may put my foot in my mouth. But I look for the big picture when I get lost in the details.
To honor the original thread here: It's looking more like the Elon thing was a true falling out between these two personalities. (Putin/ Kolomoisky is a comparison.) Elon is used to running his businesses-- "wipe it clean and start over if you need to." Politics is not the same. His angry employees, laid off, would probably not burn down his dealerships, etc. The opportunity appeared to be there, as Gato described it, but I never thought Trump would stay the course with DOGE. (Though I wanted this.) For the reason that he would have to take the risk of losing the midterms with all else going on -- both kinetic wars, at least one he helped start (Ritter: "Trump laid down 20 CIA bases in UKr. his first term.") - and the trade war he started-- that has created a crushing pressure on him right now.
And LA is startiing to look like Watts again -- and the summer heat is just starting to rise!
Elon was always going to be short term due to other commitments, so when they put pressure on Tesla sales and the stock price fell, they expedited his departure.
Elon is not elected. He is ngo. Yet his dip shit fanbois fail to realize he never belonged anywhere near the president. Your country is illegally occupied yet too many are stupid to law.
No it will hurt Elon much much worse. He's already backing down. Some of the stuff he was posting were just 'dick' moves.
This is typical behavior of autisic/aspberger's . They really can't handle things emotionally and lash out. I see a mental well check in his future.
Elon started it and I'll soon be selling my Tesla stock. I don't have faith in his company anymore.
I believe people on the boards of his businesses will soon start moving him out or forcing him to take a back seat. Maybe that's where he needs to be, in the engineering room not in public.
Lets see if the completely organic attacks on dealerships and personal attacks on Elon goes down now.
Trump was an actor in WWE (see link below). At this point it would not surprise me that Elon is more powerful outside of the government then by Trumps side. The timing of his legally required exit matches the feud? The other side will work hard to woo Elon back from the Trump orbit and fan that flame.
As long as Elon is officially outside of the sphere, he can go back to doing what he does best.
DOGE is still operational but until congress or the DOJ starts to prosecute people for fraud, its not going to reach its full potential.
“So all of our sales this year and last year had nothing to do with the tax credit because we’re no longer eligible because we’ve made so many electric cars. Tesla’s made roughly two-thirds of all the electric cars made in the United States. I’m not sure if most people are aware of that. So Tesla’s made roughly twice as many electric vehicles as everyone else has made. Honestly, I would just can this whole bill. Don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation,” Musk suggested.
He has betrayed everything MAGA stands for. What's the point of Elon working his butt off to save 150bn bucks and reveal the massive levels of corruption in every part of government if Trump blows a trillion on the military and buddies up to corrupt swine like Graham et al? And don't even get me started on the lack of arrests of seditionist criminals from the Biden regime, mass deportations, culling of government departments....
Deportations are proceeding at about 1% to 3% of what is needed. I can see Trump deporting the 700k "worst" and then letting the rest stay. Another DACA. Meanwhile I go out in public and feel like a stranger in my own country.
Deportations are irrelevant, unless they start deporting legal citizens simply for being non-White. Even 0 immigration and 100% enforcement only change the date at which the US becomes a White minority nation by a year or 2.
The first time was POTUS the Jacobins understand how to manipulate trump. The fellow suffers from extreme NARCACISSISM. The only hope was that Musk and his associates could control and guide trump. trump has yet to admit that the Warp Speed concoctions are a TOXIC FAILURE. " Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."
Im confused. This early give to the Rinos is surely a populist attempt to maximize Republican mid term victories with nut cutting coming in the second half with a clearer majority in the house and senate? Plus massive primaries in 2028. But what do i know? Maybe the answer is to be tough as hell this time? I certainly don’t disagree with the bad cat on his analysis, Trump has been “all about me” as long as I remember but surely he’s smarter than this analysis? 🧐
Thanks for this link. It gives new perspective on the bill itself. This was what disappointing about this gato blog is it just glossed over without actually explaining any details or providing evidence for why this is or is not a big spending bill.
What victory?? Keeping these useless rinos in office is just more of the same, as the bad cat explains. There is no victory in doubling down on failed policy that only helps the insiders. At this point the R and D next to a senators name is meaningless.
Jim, pls read/listen to the Stephen Miller explanation. This will explain why your comment has no meaning. Perhaps I don’t fully comprehend what failed policy you refer to? This is a rescission or reconciliation bill which has specific rules…
The main thing is that it’s not “a giant spending bill”. It’s a huge opportunity to get some conservative direction codified into this country’s fabric. I think there’s some benefit to Musk’s preference to reduce spending but also support Trump’s belief that this bill is not the right vehicle. Thanks for reply.
You get more of what you reward. If the current spending spree continues and the Repubs/RINOs somehow keep their majority, why, exactly, would they not keep their current spending spree going?
Respectfully, I think a lot of people are being distracted by the dustup between to alpha males and losing sight of what is really at stake. The ultimate success of the MAGA / MAHA alliance is the dismantling of the deep state, and the return to a Republic governed by the elected representatives not the bureaucracThe only way to truly accomplish that goal is to starve the deep state of funds. Only 25% of the federal budget is discretionary the rest is mandatory spending: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory (discretionary programs that have been renamed so Congress doesn’t have to debate them every budget). Our current federal budget is @ 7.3 trillion of which only @5.1 trillion is covered by tax or tariff income. So a 2.2 trillion deficit. If you look at the countries overall debt of @37 trillion and add the 2.2 trillion deficit which the CBO projects for 10 years (rosy accounting), then you end up with close to a 60 trillion dollar national debt in 2035. That is not sustainable. It is a debt bomb that will either end in default (unlikely) or rampant inflation (more likely). If you assign a purchasing value of to the 1998 dollar as – 1.00, then because of inflation a 2025 dollar is worth only 51 cents. Imagine trying to live in 2035 if the value of that dollar declines to 10 or 15 cents.
Musk is a businessman who is angry about the budget. Trump is a politician and knows that the party in power loses seats in the midterm and he is trying to avoid that. The democrats and the media hate them BOTH. Trump because he’s Trump, and Musk because of DOGE. You know, the people who dismantled their corrupt source of funds in USAID and the various shady NGO’s. The work that DOGE has done hasn’t been made permanent by Congress and the current Big Beautiful Bill doesn’t go far enough to address the debt bomb.
The media only wants to focus on the vitriol attacks between the alpha players. This is essential a psyops distraction. IMO the denizens of substack should ignore the propaganda media and focus on the Senate fixing the BBB and making progress on averting bomb.
Elon Musk is a known drug addict. Trump, like all of us, has feet of clay. If Kalamity Kamala had been elected, the country would already be bankrupt. I am not 100% for Trump. He can be arrogant and annoying, but he's the best bet we have.
"Grant is a drunkard," asserted powerful and influential politicians to the President at the White House time after time; "he is not himself half the time; he can't be relied upon, and it is a shame to have such a man in command of an army."
"So Grant gets drunk, does he?" queried Lincoln, addressing himself to one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier, who, at that period, was inflicting heavy damage upon the Confederates.
"Yes, he does, and I can prove it," was the reply.
"Well," returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, "you needn't waste your time getting proof; you just find out, to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send a barrel of it to each one of my generals."
That excuse is getting tired. As the estimable puss says, this was a massive, once in a life time chance to turn things around. It is almost certainly the last chance the US will have to do so. And Trump, after 5 months only, has categorically failed. He has betrayed his voters and even worse, he has betrayed his country.
I’m happy with a lot of what he’s done and less happy with other things but I wouldn’t say he destroyed the country or Maga, etc…. Maga is a movement now. It lives apart from sny one individual.
You are full of it and so is the egotistical cat. He is still being stopped at every turn by two-bit judges. Would Kalamity Kamala have been better? The country would be bankrupt by now.
The country IS bankrupt now. It is almost at the point of no return in terms of debt. And Trump was brought in to reverse that. Musk, for all his faults, made a great start, but what's the point when Trump continues to back a piece of porcine garbage like this bill? The guy is all over the place and has learned nothing from his first term.
It is at no return and has been for 15 years. No amount of cutting is getting us out of the mess in the long-term. Growth is the only way. And I still think we have a better chance of mitigating the worst of the inevitable economic carnage with Trump than any other feasible/ plausible choice. Nobody was going to beat Trump, there's too many Trump simps.
As I've said, im disappointed in Trump, but I had my expectations tempered because for me Trump was never about "fixing" things he was about stopping the march to totalitarianism.
So, im not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. DOGE will be effective (if a non-RINO or a 3rd party get into office) because Elon and his team at least know where all the nooks, crannies, knobs and levers are at. If Trump does not have a "map" (or its not shared with a non-RINO candidate upon his departure) of that then it will be a lost opportunity, and all for nothing.
I just don't think that's the case...but I could definitely be wrong. The key is to make sure whoever is tapped next is neither a Trump or a RINO.
I will throw the baby out once he rounds on Vance. If he does (whether he has it or not) the "map" will be useless.
Unfortunately I think you are spot on. This is the Republican steady progress towards the cliff in a convertible like Thelma and Louise vs. the progressives hurtling us forward at 180mph in a bullet train. But I do see truth in Gato’s words and feel a level of bitterness at lost potential. I see what the feckless republicans in my state legislature are trying to do to DeSantis and I can’t help but fear our once great republic is in its death throes. Chip Roy, Massie, Rand Paul, Ron Iohnson are on an island. Sucks that both the founders and George Orwell have been so prescient about our current times. Like you I still hold out hope, but thinking preppers are less and less crazy every day.
Wow, so now you support the Black Panthers? Any more tired clichès you want to impart? I have plenty of solutions that Trump could try - most of them relate to fulfilling the promises he made on the campaign trial: mass deportations of illegals, jailing all the deep staters who committed sedition during his first term, scaling back military bases, ending all support to Ukraine....
The best part of your rant was the suggestion that musk may be organizing a third party as a way to shake things up in Congress. As it is the mid terms will be more of the same. A few seats changing the balance of power one way or the other.
Good. I thought it was me. Thanks. He really was. He is a very smart guy. I saw him interviewed once, but sometimes he gets carried away with his “smartness.”
What is your evidence that Elon is a known drug addict? Elon stated he used prescription Ketamine to address a depressive episode. Then the MSM ran with that to discredit him. Do you have other facts to support your statement?
I can barely think of one person over the age of 55 who’s not a drug addict either pushed or prescribed. I’m a health care provider and know exactly what I’m talking about.
I don’t give a shit what Elon is so called addicted to. He’s got a much better brain than DJT
If trump is the best we have, reflect on "Warp Speed" and his first try at being POTUS and tell me all is not lost? "When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it."
Cut him some slack. During his first term he was surrounded by liars and losers and he had no one else to take advice from. Do you think Kalamity Kamala would not have bankrupted our country by now?
On a very personal level I lost too many people too the Warp Speed Concoction, which trump still insists saved millions. RUBBISH! 99% of failures come from people who make excuses.
Can we revisit this in a year? We escaped totalitarianism by a hair. Trump was and is simply a wedge in the door.
There is an X factor i don't think you're weighting:
Pride in America. Making shit here again. Building stuff. Being proud to be an American.
Im not a fan of tariffs but I've yet to see the mercurial shake-up do any lasting economic damage. Economic indicators look at helluva a lot better than they did 6 months ago.
I have had zero issues with supply chain and most of my shit comes from Asia. Its my business to stay on top of supply chains and I just don't see what you see in that regards.
I think you're disappointed, as I am, but I think you're also uncharacteristically overreacting.
Plus the "right track/wrong track" poll just hit 50% for the first time in the polls history.
i don't know what indicators you're looking at, but ISM is collapsing on new orders while prices spike. home prices down in 61% of counties. when the sugar high of the inventory surge wears off, this is going to get ugly.
the bullwhip has not hit yet.
"right track wrong track" is not gonna survive that. people think tariffs work. they're going to be pissed when they don't.
Ill tell you what im looking at, gato, I've somehow been profitable for 25 years straight through some really shitty times by being ahead of the curve.
This isn't anywhere near some of those rough patches. I've looked at all the data, the same data that missed the tech bust, the subprime meltdown, etc. Im not hanging my hat on that.
If you want to have an in depth economic discussion we can take it offline because I got a feeling its gonna bore everyone.
Im not worried in the short-term. Im worried about the macro in the intermediate term.
What indicators to look at? How about the stock market. The S&P 500 is within 2% of an all-time high. The yield curve looks healthy. Inflation indicators have come down. Trump's energy policies are very anti-inflationary. Home prices are still being hurt by the spike in mortgage rates that occurred in the last few years. Blue state and local government policies are also hurting housing markets.
I am in supply chain, too, and I haven't seen supply chain issues in terms of getting stuff, except for bloody rare earth magnets, but we have seen pretty significant price increases, which unfortunately our customers have not been keen on accepting. If tariffs stay low we will be fine for the most part I expect, but if they spike back up to 125% on China and, well really any higher on India, we are going to have problems. If we can't get magnets we will be out of business by mid fall. There are some non-China options there, but honestly if 90+% of the market is going to try and reorient to snatch up 10% of the market, prices will be nuts and we might be hosed even in that case.
I think a lot of this is going to be like steel in 2018. I actually used it as an opportunity by delaying projects until the market settled.
In other words, I'd book the deals at 10% extra GP (and everyone understood the slight increase because they were adjusting as well) and then waited until prices shored up.
Now that's a horrible strategy if you think prices will stay high, but I don't think shortages from supply chain issues will keep prices artificially high mainly because of Trump.
Hes not an ideologue and the minute he thinks "artificial" becomes the new normal he'll back track and claim victory.
Which survivors? Seems like the industry in general took it in the pants, closing mills down left and right and prices dropping as companies switched to aluminum. US Steel was going to be bought (although that is probably good; Nippon Steel seems to really have their act together.) Maybe it worked out for someone, but it was one of those things that had remarkably bad outcomes for the very companies it was supposed to help.
Nah. Having skin in the game changes that dynamic. If it doesn't you lose.
I got a dog in the fight, but it ain't a dog that let's my emotions (particularly with Trump) get between what my mind is processing and what my eyes WANT to see.
Good for you, but that is, in my experience rare in these times. As to trump, I wouldn't work for him nor would I hire him. "Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well."
"As to trump, I wouldn't work for him nor would I hire him".
You and me both.
I just don't see the tariffs doing any meaningful damage either now or in the near future because, even if they work (and they won't long-term) , Trump doesn't have the nerve to stand by them for any meaningful amount of time.
I just think this is all an exercise in making a tempest in a teapot because of "violations" of libertarian ideals. I never expected Trump to act like a libertarian, because hes not and never has been one.
So im surprised that anyone is surprised that Trump started wielding them like a toddler with a hand grenade. I mean, after all n he spent 9 years telegraphing his stance on tariffs. I think all of gatos points are fair criticism, I just don't share them to the degree with which he does.
I am a pragmatic libertarian and that gets me in trouble because the most difficult people to find common ground with are the very people who share the same ideals as myself. In fact just mentioning being a pragmatic libertarian is a violation of libertarian ideals. And thats why they never get shit done; they're so stuck on ideals they can't see (or can't find) when they have (or may) common ground. To some extent common ground itself is a violation of libertarian ideals. I want the same thing gato does. Im just am not as optimistic on the time frame (nor the vessel - Trump himself) that is required to get to where we want.
Why?
Not necessarily because of Trump, but precisely for the people gato (and he's right) thinks we need to reach:
The middle.
Immediate and sweeping structural changes would not be accepted by those people. It would be viewed as radical, and would "scare" them far worse than any of the damage that could be done with tariffs.
It just feels like we're throwing the baby out before we've even turned the water on.
It's still early, this has a long way to go. My guess is trump is/was just a temporary employee, we'll see. "It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience."
"And thats why they never get shit done; they're so stuck on ideals they can't see (or can't find) when they have (or may) common ground. To some extent common ground itself is a violation of libertarian ideals."
Replace libertarian with Marxist, and you have the 1970s Reds down to a tee. Realisation set in during the 1980s and the Wall coming down in '89 (sometimes I still feel hung over from the partying!) nailed it:
Pragmatic first, ideologue-istic second.
And look at them now, three decades after they went pragmatic. Imagine what US libertarians could achieve if and when they accept that!
I hope this all blows over and it's just the drama of the week. I fear that you're right, and the biggest opportunity in my voting lifetime got blown to smithereens.
I want an American Javier Milei, not this garbage.
Voted Trump 3X always with eyes wide open. Without STRUCTURAL change, nothing he does is anything more than Deck Chairs on the Titanic. On that score his entire first administration was a washout. Trump 2.0 looked to be the Biggest Winner. But he is once again surrounding himself with and aligning with SWAMP creatures. Mike Johnson is the most loathesome creature in DC, but he seems to direct Trump who shows virtually no leadership in using his Bully Pulpit and negotiating skills to get Congress to enact the legislative / structural change necessary to re-shape our Federal Government towards the MAGA vision.
I'm 100% Team Elon and I will make political donations to support Thomas Massie if Trump carries through with his threats to Primary Massie (good luck with that Mike Johnson wet dream).
Agreed. Like El Gato, for a short time I believed that Trump had learnt his lessons and had finally leant the art of picking the right people. That honeymoon didn't last long. Well, at least he ended the Ukraine war in 24 hours. Oh, wait...
I'LL SECOND THE MOTION! You're spot on! Based on his record there was no reason to expect much from trump. But Musk and his associates gave me reason for hope. But they've lost control of trump.
I don't know. This started after Elon threw a multi day fit over not having enough cuts to the bill, mainly by not letting the tax cuts expire. Trump wants to keep them and grow the economy to make up the difference. I think it's unfortunate that Trump is taking the bait, but for days now Elon has been losing his shit. I think this will blow over.
Respectfully disagree, although maybe that's just my hope. Elon spent days calling Trump a traitor and saying Trump will destroy the country, etc. Not a fan of threatening his contracts but seems like a Trumpian way of reminding Elon of the administrations favors to his space program. Then Elon goes way overboard with a pedophile accusation. That's why I think this will actually blow over. It's just so over the top, with Elon going all in with an autistic rant. Who knows. I hope I'm right on this one Gato.
Jen may have called it, today it was an exchange of brief conciliatory tweets, maybe the worst is behind us. More jesuit theatre maybe? Check the gematria.
Oh please, Trump is the most investigated person on the planet. He's not on any list. If he was it would have come out 10 years ago! He flew on a plane for a short hop back to NY. It is well known/documented that he banned Epstein from Mar a Lago.
There are several reasons that the Epstein list suddenly vanished (remember when Bondi was going to release that?). The first is that Epstein entrapped many people on "our" side as well as Dems; and secondly, it was a Mossad sting operation, and revealing that would have hurt our masters in Tel Aviv. As for Trump, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he was there.
I may well be wrong. The best solution, therefore, is to do what he promised before being elected: release the Epstein files in their entirety and let's see who was really there.
I voted for DJT thrice, but it isn't hard to see from the weird comments he made about his own daughter, and his cavalier attitude about backstage access to his Pageants, that he had a major problem with lasciviousness... however he does have a certain moralistic fiber that might have kept him from taking the elite pedo compromat-control bait. He also was schooled by Roy Cohn, whose secret filming and political blackmail skills were legendary. And Nixon, who was not a "player" sexually but knew the insider ropes as well as anyone. Watergate was actually a plan to fetch the D's black book of compromised swampers.
The flight logs say no (except one or a few Florida to NYC runs when Trump's plane was down for maintenance). Again, DJT learned the ropes from Roy Cohn and Tricky D, he knew how things "work" backstage by his 30's.
If Elon is right about the Epstein list nothing else about Trump matters. If Elon is lying, nobody who isn’t on his payroll will give a damn about Elon. This isn’t a schoolyard brawl where all the kids line on one side or another. The only thing that matters is the truth.
One other thing… that Ukrainian strike on the Russian bomber fleet is a matter of consequence. These petty personality meltdowns are not. One of those things seriously can be the end of the world and the other most definitely is not.
I wonder if the Senate RINOs who are rooting for WWIII think the Russian strike on Kiev was an unfair reply to the Ukrainian drone strike? Your last sentence is SPOT ON!
Those fools still think regime change and access to Ivan's $70+ Trillion in natural resources is a no brainer. If it comes to that, Space Force better have the Nicky Tesla quantum super-rayguns warmed up and on standby, or those Ruskie truck-mobile and sub launched missiles are going to leave a mark.
The thing i like about you the most is you are not afraid to be wrong.
I usually make it a practice before making major predictions, when I have skin in the game (or before i put skin in the game), to go through an exercise where I ask myself if im wrong in X amount of time (in this case 6 months) from now what mental gymnastics would i have to go through to "prove" im "right" AND what would have to change (facts on the ground) in that time frame for my original analysis to be wrong.
There's a subtle difference between the two and I've found that keeps my "metronome" balanced.
Obviously you've thought it through and feel strongly about it, but i wonder if that exercise might prevent the pendulum from flying of its axis.
Im not being a smartass but I'd be interested in your thought process if you are wrong 6 months from now. All im saying is the further that pendulum gets away from the axis the wilder the gymnastics have to be in order to justify the initial position.
yes rumour goes. and not rumour, there seems to be evidence Kennedy is, too. We all know that the uppeties will not ever be arrested, even if those are not on the list. But they're all buddies.
SPOT ON! Perhaps, a month or so ago James Carvelle said trump's administration was about to implode. What did James know and when. As you point out the Jacobins know how to manipulate trump. To which I'd add: " No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know."
Occam's razor: Trump and Elon want the democrats to SCREAM for the Epstein files to be released. So maybe it all boiled down to that single now deleted X post. We'll see if they take the bait and run with it... it sounds like they were gumming it cautiously yesterday.
I'm old enough to remember Elon getting crosswise with some cave divers who did go on to save a bunch of kids their way. He also nearly got into a similar spot with MAGA over the H1Bs. He's demonstrated a stubborn volatility in the past but also he's one to be able to change his mind and admit a mistake. I do not consider him a political leader. He doesn't have the temperament. He's too honest about his passions to a fault. I would not expect he could pull of a viable party split. If I recall he did apologize to the cave diver who he also called a pedo, so we'll see.
Horrible take. Right track, wrong track poll just hit 50% right track for the first time in that poll’s history. The American people largely like what’s happening. You are way off-base and seem to have an unhealthy case of TDS.
Real income up .8 vs expectation of .3 last month. Inflation keeps falling, nearly the 2% target. Doomsayers keep saying, "just wait", like a meteorologist who constantly predicts rain, is constantly wrong, until one day it finally rains, when he responds, preening, as if he was always right.
Hilarious. GDP "shrank" due to accounting. Companies front ran the tariffs and imported like never before, moving inventory to the USA before they'd be forced to pay more. Mark those to average and you have a healthy GDP gain. If/when that extra inventory makes its way through the economy, it would actually act in a stimulant fashion, far from recessionary. Finally, tariffs and trade deals are still in flux. If/when there is more good news on those fronts, it will further add a stimulus effect to purchase orders, capital expenditures, etc. Additionally, if tax cuts pass, including no tax on tips / OT, etc, that will give more citizens a feeling of being "flush", likely further increasing spending. We shall see, but the future is far from a negative certainty.
They said this during Biden and we pulled through. The government is not the economy. We the People are. I don’t care about Elon. Never did and I never will.
Could it be there is a large game being played behind the scenes? "This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept."
The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.
Be careful of fake headlines. Biden's administration was falsely showing growth (or lower losses) and "adjusting" the numbers downwards later. I think people are falling for falsely inflated numbers - not by the administration, but by the press, so that they get everyone's expectations up too high relative to real life.
This is a possibility, and I'm keenly aware of it. Yet, I haven't seen evidence of it yet. There is always, with anything, the possibility that data are fraudulent or wrong.
They're trying to inflate a "positive economy" balloon that is unrealistic, so that more people will be disappointed when it "pops" before the midterms. And it won't be an overt pop. (there will be one, though) This will be the simmering discontent they're fomenting to give people the illusion that the economy is good. But Take a look at the number of jobs being lost. Oh, sorry... look at how many cars, boats, RV's, household goods and other junk is being sold out there and people aren't buying... I overheard a few people at church saying they've lost their jobs. People aren't job hopping as much. People are increasingly complaining about the difficulty in finding jobs (AI is a big factor here - real or perceived). Having just had AI whip me up a program in a language I barely know, and do a task I had no idea how to do proved to be amazingly good (despite the numerous purposeful attempts by chatGPT to delete data when I had no intention of doing so.). Other people having good (and sometimes dubious) results from chatgpt is causing a lot of rethinking of employment needs. There's still a lot of hype out there in AI land, but people's hair is on fire about it.
There will be a number of "economic" indicators that will try to highlight the negative aspects of the Trump administration's effort to combat a purposeful and planned globalist crushing of our country.
Sure, every issue in the economy isn't suddenly magically solved. The AI issue is real and it will replace people's jobs, whether Trump or anyone else is president. We are entering "brave new world" territory and will have to adapt and adjust, even as the overall productivity increases. But that has nothing to do with Trump. Unless you truly want him to turn into a dictator and attempt to ban AI or ban it from replacing anyone's job (which would be folly).
factor in the tariffs, the price of silver has broken out, add a fed rate cute 3-4 months out, which would add liquidity to the economy and inflation will rise. COVID was a fraud. Inflation is a bit easier to track. Just take the .gov number and essentially double it as it is Always in the interest of the government to report falling inflation to the masses, except when they can't, like under FJB when rising gasoline prices exploded the price of other consumer staples.
I'm not seeing any inflation. Amazon reports minimal, insignificant price spikes. Energy prices have dropped significantly as well and THAT is the key input into all business.
bad cat, STOP IT !!! YOU ARE HURTING YOUR CREDIBILITY. The stock market and bond market look 6 to 9 months ahead, and have not detected the calamity you're pushing.
There is also a thing I call TWS: Trump worship syndrome. I voted for Trump. I don't hate him or love him. I'm just crossing my fingers that something good comes out of the next 4 years. But I'm not betting on it. TDS is sooo real and sooo psychotic. But so it TWS. We need to be able to see two sides to everything without going insane.
I'm not worshipping anyone, save God. I see Trump's faults, but I'm not blinded by them. I'm not voting for a personality. I'm voting for policies. Data say the policies are working well. The American people, 50% of whom say we are on the right track for the first time in the poll's history, agree. I look at data and policies, not personalities.
Definitely with you on Epstein files. However, they need additional resources for mass deportations, unless they want to repurpose the entire FBI. Those funds are to be found in...you guessed it...the BBB. Perp walks might still be coming. Plenty of time left. It's only been just over four months. Have to build cases and they've done so much else that's outstanding so far, I'm willing to allow leeway there. That said, they are bringing charges against a number of malcontents, including Tish James.
They need to deport a lot of people before the next census shows up and those numbers get goosed again in bad ways that even the Supreme Court is unwilling to undo.
Amen. I still find it unbelievable that we allow congressional apportionment based on the presence of illegal aliens. Inexcusable and creates perverse incentives.
Interestingly, I just now had a chat session with chatGPT on the census, and how the 2020 census was manipulated. It OVERLOOKED the bias in counting in red vs blue states, and continued to attribute undercounting in red states to local policies there that "scared" undocumented workers.
BIAS much??? I pointed out the omission given the importance of the apportionment issue. I've gotten tired of validating apologies from chatGPT. I've had it previously disobey specific instructions to NOT introduce negative coding, and it kept trying to, and apologizing each time. After 7-8 separate instances where it violated it, and apologized each time... Sorry. there's a negative ghost in the machine.
Interesting find. This definitely aligns with the bias I see that OpenAI has in other areas as well. I'm curious if other AIs would replicate this bias or not with this particular issue of the 2020 census.
"Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the future... We watch our experts read the entrails of statistical tables and graphs the way the ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken."
Eric Hoffer I'm going with el gato malo, he was spot on in the Covid Hysteria and he is in this as well. tump has a record and it's not good!
Agree, in principle. However, even if politicians tailored their policies towards this poll, in order to give the American people what they want than we end up with a country more on the right track. It is a GOOD thing to want to represent the populace and have them think you are doing a good job. It is also exceptionally rare. Hence, the importance of a majority of Americans thinking the country is on the right track, for the first time in the poll's history.
The quote doesn't really seem relevant. The poll has existed for decades. Only now has it ever hit 50%. This from one of the most reputable and accurate pollsters around. As well, the reason most people don't trust polls is because they lean left. If that's the case here, than even more than 50% of the populace thinks we are on the right track. Simply giving quotes from famous individuals isn't really a relevant reply.
The Aldous quote is perpetually true. He crafted it decades back after all. So the fact that people can be manipulated is hardly new. What IS new is that 50% of the polled American public thinks the country is on the right track, for the first time in the poll’s history.
Its a reconciliation bill..... only for taxes - not for spending cuts. The addition to the debt ceiling is based on the CBO numbers, which do not take account of growth, etc. The spending cuts are coming up in the rescission bills - recognizing DOGE - and they are separate so that they can pass with a simple majority - not the 60 vote threshold.
Very well said, Suzie. I fear that the clash of egos is responsible for this massive Musk Pout. Elon was brought in to handle the DOGE element, not to dictate administrative U.S. policy.
I have also been curious about the DOGE players ... it seems that, on many occasions, either Elon or one of his amazing whiz-kids were the first to break the news on the appalling things they were uncovering. I wondered then - and wonder now - if Trump had given the green light for that to happen. Perhaps he felt it prudent to let them "brag" and stay enthusiastic. But, given his ego, I would have thought that all public announcements would first come from Trump.
At any rate, some definite resentments on both sides are sure burnin' down the barn. I so hope this has some halfway decent conclusion.
It is my suspicion that there is much activity behind the scenes. "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
And I'll raise you one: " I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
I agree with half of your analysis. The other half? I've said before that autistic geniuses need sharp powerful managers to keep them tethered to their proper useful space.
Neither of these guys are *stable* geniuses but--and it's a hard contest but still--Elon is far more unstable and the viciousness of his tweet regarding Trump and the Epstein list shows what happens when the richest toddler in the world has a tantrum.
Perhaps this will though further my own dream of both parties being irrevocably destroyed and perhaps what you hope for will happen--a third party filled with not crazies but clear-eyed voters who want the best for this country.
No the way the guy is built, had to respond! The Jacobins know how to push his buttons . Saul would have loved him: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
Agree with this. I was actually a little excited when Trump got elected. I hoped he might be just a little bit like Milei. It has not happened and is getting worse than I expected. There are some good moves on energy policy and the culture wars but vanishingly little else. I'm extremely pissed that Trump is supporting the SALT deductions which will benefit the Dems.
yeah, he had it all laid out and instead decided to run off in other directions. the alliance that could have been formed here would have been formidable.
left alone, the MAGA populists do not have the chops to be effective.
they'll howl "betrayal" but they are the ones who broke the deal.
There's a reason Trump rails against Putin. Putin is what Trump aspires to be: a leader who took his country out of the depths of despair and made it great again.
You think Russia is great? It is doing a fairly remarkable job of holding its own with the Ukraine invasion although if its military was great it would have won by now. By what other measures do you see Russia as great? Its economy grew strongly from 2000 to 2008 (partly due to high commodity prices but also due to reforms). But from 2008, Russia has lagged Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
I worked in Eastern Europe just after the wall came down, Max. Russia was in an appalling state as Yeltsin handed over the nation's wealth to oligarchs and Harvard Boys. Infant mortality skyrocketed while life expectancy dropped. Russia's middle class vanished and the poverty was indescribable. Putin turned it around in one of the most astonishing renaissances in modern history. As for the current situation, sure, Russia isn't Florida but it's doing pretty well. GDP was over 4% in 2024 despite the heaviest sanctions in history which forced the Russians to turn to new markets and strengthen ties with Brics. On the military front, I suppose it depends on how you define winning. I have no doubt that the Russkies have made a lot of mistakes and that the Ukies have put up a good fight. However, the main aim of the campaign was to demilitarise Ukraine. Would you say that the Ukrainian military is in a healthy state today? They've lost a million casualties, their best men are dead and they've lost the Donbass forever, with Novorossya almost certain to follow. As a bonus point, they've also shown NATO to be a paper tiger and are doing a great job of widening the fault lines in the EU. Finally, unlike our sterile and divided societies in the West, Russia has a relatively cohesive social structure and a proud history. Perhaps we should lay off the Russophobia and concentrate our efforts on saving our own dying societies.
All good points Steg. The West has been trying to dismantle Russia and steal its stuff for centuries and fails repeatedly. Napoleon and Hitler the most recent. Starmer seems ready to be next and bring out the light brigade for another outing, trying to take over the Black Sea again where they have no business.
Also since the other economies mentioned as such powerhouses, like Estonia and Latvia, have gotten essentially a free ride on providing for their own defenses, either in or near NATO protection…so the comparison is not quite on.
I can testify to how down and out Russia was after the World Bank, the IMF and sundry looted the corpse of the USSR, aided and abetted by the Russian mobs.
People up North here would sell commodities to Russians - toilet paper, Western smokes, canned foods, women's sanitary products - grocery store stuff basically in exchange for diesel, guns and ammo and such.
Border security was a complete joke during the 1995-2005 period, and the Russians were so desperate the friend of mine who was involved in the smuggling felt ashamed at times to charge them anything.
I feel sorry for them and the Ukrainians both. Neither people wanted the war.
To me it seemed the only hope was if Musk et. a. could control trump. Goldwater summed trump up: "The fellow has absolutely no principles."Money and gall" is all he has."
You're not. I'm not sure what all the desired endgames are, but getting Pam Bondi over whatever has caused her not to release the Epstein files seems to be one of them.
Wow, 4D chess. How about this: Trump is the chief executive of the US. He orders Bondi to release the Epstein files immediately or she gets sacked. That's what leaders are supposed to do.
Exactly! "When you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damned secret, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."
"Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks this is classic kayfabe."
no, i'm relieved to see someone else does, too.
if regular people can't divulge a company's secrets in boiler plate employee contracts, i can't imagine that musk can say what doge was privy to without losing everything he's got in the U.S.
i'm wondering what we're being distracted FROM again. MAHA and the shots? what?
Always careful to offer advice or comment to obviously very smart people. You need to read this though.
Trump has ONE main objective, it's the central pillar of the entire MAGA movement, he's made no secret about it and mentions it every single time he speaks. The American Economy and The American Worker. THOSE are his priorities, just as Musk's priorities are getting to Mars and doing WHATEVER he has to do to make that happen.
Now you see the inevitable conflict that was ALWAYS coming between the two men. Elon thinks he needs a zero tariff world with unlimited H-1 B visa allotments to fuel his need for cheap engineering talent and global export and import of EVERY element needed to manufacture his vision. TRUMP has watched the political elites(who Musk supported EXTENSIVELY, until he realized that they were going to CONFISCATE his entire empire) destroy the manufacturing sector of America and with it OUR MIDDLE CLASS!
Now, losing the middle-class may not seem like a big thing to all of the highly intelligent super producers out there in the world. But, as it turns out: IT'S THE ONLY THING!
The middle-class is literally what made America into a super power and the world's largest economy. The ability for a guy working the assembly line at Ford Motor Company to have five kids, a nice house and the ability to PAY FOR ALL OF THAT with one job created The American Empire. I know this because that is literally the story of my fathers family. He went from a summer job at Ford to his MS in Engineering and a corporate career to his own family and children. ONE GENERATION!
That conveyor belt of upward economic mobility IS THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF AMERICA! It's where the Michael Dell's, Bill Gates' and most of the other game changers in American business come from. It's probably where most of the DOGE guys came from.
Musk fundamentally has a vision, Trump fundamentally has to FIX a corrupt and intentionally subverted American Economy. The clash was inevitable. In fact the most informed people on the internet predicted it even BEFORE the inauguration(The wisest said Musk and Trump would fall out by April 2026 at the latest). Musk is laser focused and obsessed with his vision and his personal ethics. Sadly, Elon does NOT consider the morass of perfidy, venal behavior and outright mendacity which characterizes EVERYTHING in American politics. Trump knows those things better than any other human alive at this point. Trump has been in the crosshairs of that Leviathan for over a decade now. Musk has an idealistic view of politics, he thinks Trump can just FIX a hundred years of planned subversion in one go. That is astoundingly naive. Since Elon is NOT naive YOU must be forced to consider that all of Elon's motives might not be as idealistic and pure as one would hope. Elon's got a dog in the fight and he's DEFINITELY got selfish interests. THAT is what caused this rift. Frankly its far, far better for it to happen now. It gives Trump time to clean things up before the 2026 mid-terms. Elon needs to calm down and realize that Trump has far more support than he does, among American citizens. Musk has done many great things. Hopefully he can contain his tech overlord ambitions enough to let Trump do the greatest thing of all; FIX THE AMERICAN ECONOMY! It's really all that matters. Trump wins or our nation dies. It's that simple.
This is what he says are his priorities. Because in real life his priorities are Israel, keep RINOs like Lindsey Graham in congress and tax cuts for old folks like him while everyone else pays the most cruel tax ever: Inflation.
This reply is just simply not based in reality. Inflation is DOWN, it's currently at it's lowest point in 4 years. Biden DOUBLED the cost of everything over his miserable 4 year term. The worst inflation record since Carter in the 70's btw. Trump's first term is a very visible indicator of his intentions and of their effectiveness. Before the giant Globalist Covid scam, in 2019 our economy was on fire. Wages were up ACROSS the board, energy was cheap, food was cheap, Trump had actually created DEFLATION in the retail market for most Americans. I suggest you actually find the facts before posting opinions on here. You are making yourself look foolish. I can't really blame you, because all media narratives FAIL TO MENTION the facts I just gave you, but that does not mean you can't go find them yourself. I did.
Appreciateyour insight as always but wow, not my take at all and I hardly think this will destroy Trump or the MAGA movement. That said, if it's not all a set up it's embarrassing as hell for both of them to have such public tantrums. Time will tell I guess.
trump has now lost the initiative and broken his core alliance.
it will not be the end of MAGA, that populist base will follow him. but this cost him the real gains in the center and the durable social change he could have created.
so many of his really effective people were in the DOGE orbit.
this is really going to hurt.
I never had high expectations of Trump, but the reality is that no politician is willing to actually get the deficit under control because this requires significant increases to taxes and major cuts to spending, particularly to entitlements. In other words, you have to piss everyone off, including senior citizens, who are the most powerful electoral block in the country. The BBB completely caves on taxes and has limited cuts to spending that are simply not sufficient to make up for the difference. However, the problem for a voter is that a Harris administration would likely have been even worse.
I don't understand why entitlements (so-called) have to be cut. Why not cut the military, the pentagon, the DOE, DOD, DARPA? Why not have 100 military bases instead of 900?
All of the above...SS without the enormous fraud wouldn't be a problem, and would be in the black...And it would be easy to cut half the Pentagon's budget...Russia has a superior military on 1/10 of what America spends...
Pyrrhus - agree
I'm all for cutting defense spending as well, but entitlements have to be cut because that's where both the majority of current spending and future growth in spending is coming from.
I agree in spending military different and even reduce it. Lets start by not pretending Offensive Spending is Defence. As long as we want to project power so that corruption and soak most of the money, this will continue.
Then increase the benefits of veterans and active duty soldiers. No solider and their family should need to be on food stamps/SNAP benefits. Sad.
I left a rather long reply. I hope you get it. I had trouble navigating it.
So, I have to say military cuts would probably help with the "entitlement" program as well. As you surely know if taxes for SS were levied over the $166,000/yr income point, SS would not be in trouble. If the gov't stopped using SS and "entitlement" programs as a piggy bank, SS would probably also not be in trouble.
although this is long, you might want to read it. It explains what is covered by the word "entitlements". I will put this in 2 replies, because it's too unwieldy to try to read here. First I'll print the compensation to military employees. Then I'll make a second comment that addresses the part everyone thinks they are familiar with.
Similar to its civilian counterpart, compensation of the military (active duty and reserve) consists of wages and salaries and supplements to wages and salaries.
Wages and salaries include monetary remuneration of the military and in-kind compensation such as housing allowances, uniform allowances, and rations.
Employer contributions for employee pension and insurance funds include federal contributions to the defined-benefit pension plan for the military recorded on an accrual basis.2 Payments for government social insurance for old-age, survivors, disability insurance (social security) and hospital insurance (Medicare Part A), unemployment insurance, and veterans life insurance.
Employer contributions to the privately administered Service Group Life Insurance.
Payments for health care benefits received by active duty personnel and their dependents at nonmilitary facilities through the program known as TRICARE.3
Beginning with 2002, military compensation also includes payments by the Department of Defense for accrual funding of health care benefits for retirees. Please see, "Defined Benefit Pensions and Household Income and Wealth," and the FAQ “What changes were made to pensions during the 2013 comprehensive revision, and how have the changes affected private, federal, and state and local compensation?” for information on the accrual approach to measuring defined-benefit pension plans.
No, balancing the budget is simple....eliminate the 50% of the budget that is fraud, waste, and giveaways ...
This is a nice myth. Go take a look at the federal budget sometime and see if you can find that 50%.
Hey Epaminondas - did you check out the information I got about the military's entitlements? Any comments?
If you want a volunteer army rather than conscription, you must provide incentives for people to join and stay in. I’m sure that there is waste and fraud that could be removed, and I’m all for that, but if you take away the perks for being a soldier, very few people would enlist.
I saw your posts. Are you familiar with the math of the budget? Yes, cutting some military spend will lead to some follow-on savings in mandatory spending associated with defense. The problem is that the scale of savings is simply too small. All total mandatory spending associated with the military was $264BB in 2024. That's a drop in the bucket when total federal spending during that time period is $6.8T dollars. Also, defense spending as a % of GDP for the US has been trending down over the past several decades, so it's already being reduced over time.
And putting SS payroll taxes on all incomes only closes ~50% of SS's funding shortfall. This is a nice political talking point that's similar to the claims about cutting waste and fraud. It all sounds good, but the math simply doesn't work.
The government over the last 75 years has created this mess. We did not have a say in how our tax dollars were spent or redistributed. We cannot expect the same clowns (politicians) to fix the very mess they claim doesn't really exist.
Exactly.
Whether he knew it or not, Trump was never more than a time for us to prepare for whatever comes next.
Maybe this is all a psyop to rescue Tesla from the reputational harm it endured
also to distract corp media from immigration detention and deportation
Yes, also a Distraction from that -- and from another huge event:
I followed this feud but then realized even more important things were going on (I don't want to minimize our economic situation, however, or a loss of the potential alliance of tech, fin bros, populsim):
June 1: Ukraine's Operation Spirderweb hit Russia's nuclear triad and killed civilians. The amounts are not critical -- and probably amount to 10 TU 95 planes and 130 casualities. But it shocked and hit a raw nerve in Russia this time.
Pompeo (unrecongnizably thin now, face changed) spoke at the Black Sea meeting, organized by Ukr. on 31 May, and he was passionate (unlike him) and bellicose. He spoke ONE DAY before the drones hit Russia successfully. Neocons have simply moved over to the EU for now- ? Chatham House/Germany/France...
The "Ukraine led" operation happened, it succeeded and the war will ramp up.
It also happened a day before the next round of negotiations in Turkey.
"Timing is everything."
Grahm and Blumenthal were in Kiev the night before the Spiderweb strikes.
WHO IS RUNNING OUR FOREIGN POLICY?
If Trump was complicit, Russia is through with him.
If he wasn't -- as he claims --he is irrelevant bc someone else is running the show.
Huge loss in the Ukraine theater. Big trouble ahead.
This is so significant... CIA/ MI6 op according to John Helm.
Nonetheless, we are caught in the jaws of economic crisis and war. We need to act without any more illusions.
I feel for the alliance --seemingly powerful --Gato sees lost here, meanwhile.
Breakup to makeup? Right now it appears unlikely. But anything is possible in this arena -- especially with these two!
______
One wonders what effect factories going up in ravaged heartland areas could have -- to give America a boost?
And the UK deal was supposed to be a kind of model...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-05/worries-about-tariffs-are-easing-for-uk-firms-boe-survey-finds
Turbulent times. Hard to keep up.
Putin hit back on 6 June, hard strikes -- many cities, but the retaliation may target much more, later, I'm told by Moscow friend.
I felt lax paying too much heed at same time to Elon mess. Trump in Ukr. is a massive immediate danger unlike anything else on the boards right now.
Regarding Ukraine isn’t the solution for Trump is cut off aid to Ukraine? Or is this no longer in his control?
Also does Pompeo have cancer?
Pompeo may well have cancer. Not sure at all, but
I don't believe his story.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/589234-controversy-sparked-by-mike-pompeos-claim-he-lost-90/
______
Trump with Russia appears to be almost unreadable for the public. All over the place. BUT, like electricity/magnetic force you can understand something better when it is applied:
Putin has now called his hand with the current memorandum. See johnhelmer.net for analysis and terms.
Best foreign correspondent living in Russia, for decades. Aussie/Harvard.
Russia has given Trump weeks, not months, to accept their terms. They claim they are "stretching the peace effort to the limit." (Lavrov)
(A digression: I know his makeup artist -- a very good woman, she worked on The Apprentice and Trump for 11 years -- she spends a fortune feeding ducks on the Hudson River here in NYC! I ran on the pathway there and we got to know each other -- a while back. She has many stories. A man more good than bad, with a heart, she came to believe.)
The Elon Incident: the timing is an accident? Nothing in our lifetime (post WW2) compares with the scope, ambition and meaning of this SPIDERWEB attack; it changes all realities in our world now, as Helmer states -- this strike deep into Russia: 5 targets, all nuclear triad. It is a Pearl Harbor. (Mertz in White House was about this.)
There are many of us who voted for Trump who were not MAGA. We voted against the insane Democrat agenda. And we put our personal reputations on the line thinking TDS was a virus and Trump was actually going to drain the swamp this time bc he learned how to fight it during Trump 1.0.. We also believed Elon, David Sacks, et al. would not be stupid enough to ruin their credibility. Oh, how wrong we were.
What's a loss of credibility when you gain the whole surveillance state as your own.
Same here. I couldn’t let those monsters back in. I’m over politics. It’s on the surface like an oil slick —they ALL hate us and don’t care a rats patootie about those who gave them this power or the worker ants I guess we are at this point. Easy to crush.
Yep.
Could you think on what this large of a distraction may be hiding? Trump admits this is his MO.... get people looking in one direction while he does what he wants somewhere else.
Yes. Absolutely.
See my post just above at Citizen Bitcoin. Critical events from 31 May to today in Ukraine/Russia.
Interesting...... lots of dots. But Trump already inferred he has washed his hands of them. Isn't that why the neocons are over there trying to do their own thing to stir up more fighting, because Trump won't? I'm wondering if there isn't something in that BBB that the PTB want to keep under wraps? ? Where have Vance, Witkoff, and Grenell been? Anything happening in finance?
Trump... hard to read. His style is to create confusion before he settles, and use a hammer when he can. He seems to be working inside a structure he is simulataneously trying to dismantle...he pulls on it, it pulls back. The judges are just one example.
It is all so dynamic right now-- "war is the most dynamic of all events." Kinetic and economic wars, both.
Still the mathematical end game for a credit-based economy is collapse; and Russia can't lose -- not alone, bc everyone would lose. He has his work cut out for him. (Love him, hate him -- this is the toughest job on the planet at the moment.)
Spiderweb: the Russians did not see it coming, American citizens did not, Trump and Rubio stated they were not informed beforehand --but Russia believes DJT knew, and the neocons had many years of momentum going in Ukr when he came into office, and all the EU relationships. Pompeo's Black Sea speech on 31 May, a day before the strikes, tells volumes.
This is the thinnest ice we have walked on in my lifetime, imo.
Russia wants a public acknowledgement by Trump that he allowed this to happen, or their response will be "strategic." With acknowledgement, less harsh.
On the economic front, clearly Trump makes very big and threatening moves and it all feels like it is in free fall at times. Then he gets a deal like the UK one. He did say once that the only way to affect real change on a global scale was to 'blow it all up' -- meaning use the tariffs across the board, as leverage. (I know Gato disagrees, here. I remain uncertain this will fail more than a continuation of what we had -- the toilet.)
No question neocons arepressing hard to stay the course of war... and yet it seems like Trump's own team flows with them for now: they seek victory, he seeks " a negotiated peace through strength" as far as we can tell. He and Mertz repeated this several times. "Peace through strength." (Sounds great...Bridge for sale?)
Well...here is something that gives a perspective on the whole situation re USA/EU breakup and EU and Russia. (The writer is hit and miss, but worth watching. Financial-geopolitical thinker. Sometimes he nails things:)
"The EU is correct that if Ukraine falls, there goes Europe. However, that does NOT mean Russia invades Europe. There is NOTHING there worth taking. Instead, the collapse of Ukraine is more about the collapse of the Western political hegemony. This will lead to the crumbling of the EU internally with division – not some invasion by Putin.
N.B.>> "... The collapse of Ukraine really means the collapse of European debt, and the division will erupt just as you see in the American Democratic Party and its internal Civil War."
They need the war to survive, to stay in power as the EU. If the Russians win -- and for them they must -- the current EU power structure will not survive. (The BRICS with every new day we survive all this may well offer a real alternative to Western dominance.)
Ukr is about remaining dominant for the West -- and Western power means the Atlanticist Alliance.
I repeat John Helmer's words:
Nothing in our lifetime (post WW2) compares with the scope, ambition and meaning of this SPIDERWEB attack; it changes all realities in our world now, as Helmer states -- this strike deep into Russia: 5 targets, all nuclear triad. It is a Pearl Harbor.
In the aftermath, now, its all about winning escalation dominance. Russia must do what Iran did -- show their power now that they appear vulnerable.
BTW, I'm a flamenco guitarist (etc) who reads a lot, and once in a while I may put my foot in my mouth. But I look for the big picture when I get lost in the details.
To honor the original thread here: It's looking more like the Elon thing was a true falling out between these two personalities. (Putin/ Kolomoisky is a comparison.) Elon is used to running his businesses-- "wipe it clean and start over if you need to." Politics is not the same. His angry employees, laid off, would probably not burn down his dealerships, etc. The opportunity appeared to be there, as Gato described it, but I never thought Trump would stay the course with DOGE. (Though I wanted this.) For the reason that he would have to take the risk of losing the midterms with all else going on -- both kinetic wars, at least one he helped start (Ritter: "Trump laid down 20 CIA bases in UKr. his first term.") - and the trade war he started-- that has created a crushing pressure on him right now.
And LA is startiing to look like Watts again -- and the summer heat is just starting to rise!
______
Robert Frost
1874 –1963
DESIGN
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Elon was always going to be short term due to other commitments, so when they put pressure on Tesla sales and the stock price fell, they expedited his departure.
Elon is not elected. He is ngo. Yet his dip shit fanbois fail to realize he never belonged anywhere near the president. Your country is illegally occupied yet too many are stupid to law.
Illegaly occupied by Israelis
Nah, Jews/Israelis contribute to the advance of Western Civilization. Muzzies on the other hand, seek to tear it all down.
you think their psycopathic extermination of women and children is advancing Western civilisation ? You are evil.
Ok DB. Get another booster
Wow 😮
Get psychiatric help.
Uhhhh I believe you’re being overtly a drama queen.
My bad kitty is lying by my side now and understands this isn’t the end of MAGA
No it will hurt Elon much much worse. He's already backing down. Some of the stuff he was posting were just 'dick' moves.
This is typical behavior of autisic/aspberger's . They really can't handle things emotionally and lash out. I see a mental well check in his future.
Elon started it and I'll soon be selling my Tesla stock. I don't have faith in his company anymore.
I believe people on the boards of his businesses will soon start moving him out or forcing him to take a back seat. Maybe that's where he needs to be, in the engineering room not in public.
Lets see if the completely organic attacks on dealerships and personal attacks on Elon goes down now.
Trump was an actor in WWE (see link below). At this point it would not surprise me that Elon is more powerful outside of the government then by Trumps side. The timing of his legally required exit matches the feud? The other side will work hard to woo Elon back from the Trump orbit and fan that flame.
As long as Elon is officially outside of the sphere, he can go back to doing what he does best.
DOGE is still operational but until congress or the DOJ starts to prosecute people for fraud, its not going to reach its full potential.
Trump takes down Vince (WWE)
https://youtu.be/jkghtyxZ6rc?si=v0UcBQucHSlXQZiK
“So all of our sales this year and last year had nothing to do with the tax credit because we’re no longer eligible because we’ve made so many electric cars. Tesla’s made roughly two-thirds of all the electric cars made in the United States. I’m not sure if most people are aware of that. So Tesla’s made roughly twice as many electric vehicles as everyone else has made. Honestly, I would just can this whole bill. Don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation,” Musk suggested.
I don’t know. It seems like Musk is willing to crawl back to the Democrats to save his business. He could have been our Soros times 40.
He has betrayed everything MAGA stands for. What's the point of Elon working his butt off to save 150bn bucks and reveal the massive levels of corruption in every part of government if Trump blows a trillion on the military and buddies up to corrupt swine like Graham et al? And don't even get me started on the lack of arrests of seditionist criminals from the Biden regime, mass deportations, culling of government departments....
Deportations are proceeding at about 1% to 3% of what is needed. I can see Trump deporting the 700k "worst" and then letting the rest stay. Another DACA. Meanwhile I go out in public and feel like a stranger in my own country.
Deportations are irrelevant, unless they start deporting legal citizens simply for being non-White. Even 0 immigration and 100% enforcement only change the date at which the US becomes a White minority nation by a year or 2.
There is no point...and the neocons are still pushing us toward war...Prepare for the worst....
Look at you sucking Elon’s Ass. You people are a detriment to this planet. You think trump was going to save you 😂😂😂😂
The other (real Miles Davis) was an unpleasant cretin too
The first time was POTUS the Jacobins understand how to manipulate trump. The fellow suffers from extreme NARCACISSISM. The only hope was that Musk and his associates could control and guide trump. trump has yet to admit that the Warp Speed concoctions are a TOXIC FAILURE. " Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."
Andrew Jackson
Im confused. This early give to the Rinos is surely a populist attempt to maximize Republican mid term victories with nut cutting coming in the second half with a clearer majority in the house and senate? Plus massive primaries in 2028. But what do i know? Maybe the answer is to be tough as hell this time? I certainly don’t disagree with the bad cat on his analysis, Trump has been “all about me” as long as I remember but surely he’s smarter than this analysis? 🧐
Stephen Miller explains on Charlie Kirk’s podcast
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1930721133965480412?s=46&t=cDIMiezJIAFkKBofUAJaJw
Thanks for this link. It gives new perspective on the bill itself. This was what disappointing about this gato blog is it just glossed over without actually explaining any details or providing evidence for why this is or is not a big spending bill.
What victory?? Keeping these useless rinos in office is just more of the same, as the bad cat explains. There is no victory in doubling down on failed policy that only helps the insiders. At this point the R and D next to a senators name is meaningless.
Jim, pls read/listen to the Stephen Miller explanation. This will explain why your comment has no meaning. Perhaps I don’t fully comprehend what failed policy you refer to? This is a rescission or reconciliation bill which has specific rules…
I’ll listen to him, but not sure how these giant spending bills time after time can do anything but amount to more of the same.
The main thing is that it’s not “a giant spending bill”. It’s a huge opportunity to get some conservative direction codified into this country’s fabric. I think there’s some benefit to Musk’s preference to reduce spending but also support Trump’s belief that this bill is not the right vehicle. Thanks for reply.
You get more of what you reward. If the current spending spree continues and the Repubs/RINOs somehow keep their majority, why, exactly, would they not keep their current spending spree going?
Respectfully, I think a lot of people are being distracted by the dustup between to alpha males and losing sight of what is really at stake. The ultimate success of the MAGA / MAHA alliance is the dismantling of the deep state, and the return to a Republic governed by the elected representatives not the bureaucracThe only way to truly accomplish that goal is to starve the deep state of funds. Only 25% of the federal budget is discretionary the rest is mandatory spending: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory (discretionary programs that have been renamed so Congress doesn’t have to debate them every budget). Our current federal budget is @ 7.3 trillion of which only @5.1 trillion is covered by tax or tariff income. So a 2.2 trillion deficit. If you look at the countries overall debt of @37 trillion and add the 2.2 trillion deficit which the CBO projects for 10 years (rosy accounting), then you end up with close to a 60 trillion dollar national debt in 2035. That is not sustainable. It is a debt bomb that will either end in default (unlikely) or rampant inflation (more likely). If you assign a purchasing value of to the 1998 dollar as – 1.00, then because of inflation a 2025 dollar is worth only 51 cents. Imagine trying to live in 2035 if the value of that dollar declines to 10 or 15 cents.
Musk is a businessman who is angry about the budget. Trump is a politician and knows that the party in power loses seats in the midterm and he is trying to avoid that. The democrats and the media hate them BOTH. Trump because he’s Trump, and Musk because of DOGE. You know, the people who dismantled their corrupt source of funds in USAID and the various shady NGO’s. The work that DOGE has done hasn’t been made permanent by Congress and the current Big Beautiful Bill doesn’t go far enough to address the debt bomb.
The media only wants to focus on the vitriol attacks between the alpha players. This is essential a psyops distraction. IMO the denizens of substack should ignore the propaganda media and focus on the Senate fixing the BBB and making progress on averting bomb.
Dick Minnis
Removingthecataract.substack.com
It makes me very curious if this is not just a show to distract us all from something worse that his happening in the world.
Elon Musk is a known drug addict. Trump, like all of us, has feet of clay. If Kalamity Kamala had been elected, the country would already be bankrupt. I am not 100% for Trump. He can be arrogant and annoying, but he's the best bet we have.
"Elon Musk is a known drug addict". So says the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and Susan Daniels.
Your evidentiary standards are a mite low.
"Grant is a drunkard," asserted powerful and influential politicians to the President at the White House time after time; "he is not himself half the time; he can't be relied upon, and it is a shame to have such a man in command of an army."
"So Grant gets drunk, does he?" queried Lincoln, addressing himself to one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier, who, at that period, was inflicting heavy damage upon the Confederates.
"Yes, he does, and I can prove it," was the reply.
"Well," returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, "you needn't waste your time getting proof; you just find out, to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send a barrel of it to each one of my generals."
Big civil war buff, most outstanding quote or reasonable facsimile.
SPOT ON! "Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper."
George Orwell
the great, reliable press !
From the Wall Street Journal Jan. 6, 2024
Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX
Some executives and board members fear the billionaire’s use of drugs—including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine—could harm his companies
What a joke! I’ve used most of those drugs! Who cares ffs! Grow up!
I would take that down if you ever go look for a job.
I’ve been self employed for 35 years but thanks for the sage advice 😉
Yeah so what, he used some drugs years ago. How is that a story?
You should read Alex B's substack from today
Wall Street Journal Jan 6, 2024
Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX
Some executives and board members fear the billionaire’s use of drugs—including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine—could harm his companies
Known drug addict? Why, because he sometimes smokes weed?
Prolly needs weed to help keep the stuttering down. But who the heck cares?
Ozempic!
That excuse is getting tired. As the estimable puss says, this was a massive, once in a life time chance to turn things around. It is almost certainly the last chance the US will have to do so. And Trump, after 5 months only, has categorically failed. He has betrayed his voters and even worse, he has betrayed his country.
I’m happy with a lot of what he’s done and less happy with other things but I wouldn’t say he destroyed the country or Maga, etc…. Maga is a movement now. It lives apart from sny one individual.
You are full of it and so is the egotistical cat. He is still being stopped at every turn by two-bit judges. Would Kalamity Kamala have been better? The country would be bankrupt by now.
The country IS bankrupt now. It is almost at the point of no return in terms of debt. And Trump was brought in to reverse that. Musk, for all his faults, made a great start, but what's the point when Trump continues to back a piece of porcine garbage like this bill? The guy is all over the place and has learned nothing from his first term.
It is at no return and has been for 15 years. No amount of cutting is getting us out of the mess in the long-term. Growth is the only way. And I still think we have a better chance of mitigating the worst of the inevitable economic carnage with Trump than any other feasible/ plausible choice. Nobody was going to beat Trump, there's too many Trump simps.
As I've said, im disappointed in Trump, but I had my expectations tempered because for me Trump was never about "fixing" things he was about stopping the march to totalitarianism.
So, im not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. DOGE will be effective (if a non-RINO or a 3rd party get into office) because Elon and his team at least know where all the nooks, crannies, knobs and levers are at. If Trump does not have a "map" (or its not shared with a non-RINO candidate upon his departure) of that then it will be a lost opportunity, and all for nothing.
I just don't think that's the case...but I could definitely be wrong. The key is to make sure whoever is tapped next is neither a Trump or a RINO.
I will throw the baby out once he rounds on Vance. If he does (whether he has it or not) the "map" will be useless.
Unfortunately I think you are spot on. This is the Republican steady progress towards the cliff in a convertible like Thelma and Louise vs. the progressives hurtling us forward at 180mph in a bullet train. But I do see truth in Gato’s words and feel a level of bitterness at lost potential. I see what the feckless republicans in my state legislature are trying to do to DeSantis and I can’t help but fear our once great republic is in its death throes. Chip Roy, Massie, Rand Paul, Ron Iohnson are on an island. Sucks that both the founders and George Orwell have been so prescient about our current times. Like you I still hold out hope, but thinking preppers are less and less crazy every day.
Im with you 100%.
The fraud and theft is near inconceivable
Cut that and we won’t need so much growth
I agree. But I don't think the public is ready for it all at once.
Personally I'd rather it be that way but it would cause panic.
We'd have to cut so deep into entitlements that it would be unnerving for most. And most aren't prepared.
We crossed the Rubicon a long time ago when entitlements became expectations built on a house of cards.
The entitlements were doomed to fail from day one because they're a ponzi scheme.
Write a better bill instead of bitching about this one. Act instead of just talking.
If you don’t have a solution, you are part of the problem.
Wow, so now you support the Black Panthers? Any more tired clichès you want to impart? I have plenty of solutions that Trump could try - most of them relate to fulfilling the promises he made on the campaign trial: mass deportations of illegals, jailing all the deep staters who committed sedition during his first term, scaling back military bases, ending all support to Ukraine....
For God's sake, ye of little faith, it's been four and a half months. The story is far, far, far from over.
https://susandaniels.substack.com/p/bidens-autopen-or-obamas-phony-social
And how would you do that? I see suggestons but not solutions. I’m. no fan of H. Rap Brown but he was right when he said that.
Hey Susan, you do know that Kamala was a raging alcohol and cocaine user, right?
Wouldn’t be surprised. Nobody talks in senseless loops like she does.
https://susandaniels.substack.com/p/bidens-autopen-or-obamas-phony-social
The best part of your rant was the suggestion that musk may be organizing a third party as a way to shake things up in Congress. As it is the mid terms will be more of the same. A few seats changing the balance of power one way or the other.
Who exactly are you replying to? Not me. I said nothing like that.
A response to the author. He’s the one doing the ranting
Good. I thought it was me. Thanks. He really was. He is a very smart guy. I saw him interviewed once, but sometimes he gets carried away with his “smartness.”
I think he was replying to El Gato Malo, that was a part of the essay.
Thanks. I thought it was meant for me and I was confused.
Correct
I'd like to see your point of view but I cant seem to get my head that far up my dot dot dot
That would mean taking it out first.
Sure you could.
They should really work on not giving the libtards silage to work with!! Damn egos!
It's a hard life to lead when your ONLY choice is between plague and cholera ...
What is your evidence that Elon is a known drug addict? Elon stated he used prescription Ketamine to address a depressive episode. Then the MSM ran with that to discredit him. Do you have other facts to support your statement?
Uncle Donny rocks
you are clearly high on copium.
Clever.
I can barely think of one person over the age of 55 who’s not a drug addict either pushed or prescribed. I’m a health care provider and know exactly what I’m talking about.
I don’t give a shit what Elon is so called addicted to. He’s got a much better brain than DJT
A prescription for inherited high blood pressure hardly qualifies as an addiction.
If trump is the best we have, reflect on "Warp Speed" and his first try at being POTUS and tell me all is not lost? "When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it."
Thucydides
Cut him some slack. During his first term he was surrounded by liars and losers and he had no one else to take advice from. Do you think Kalamity Kamala would not have bankrupted our country by now?
On a very personal level I lost too many people too the Warp Speed Concoction, which trump still insists saved millions. RUBBISH! 99% of failures come from people who make excuses.
George Washington
I’m sorry for your loss.
Do you only read El Gato?
No, I have been trained to look at different sources as a means of forming an opinion.
If only Trump had known! I can guarantee that you wouldn't care, as long as Musk and Trump were still buddies.
Hey, I remember you from TAC! I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find you in this clowder of cats...
Yup that's me.
Can we revisit this in a year? We escaped totalitarianism by a hair. Trump was and is simply a wedge in the door.
There is an X factor i don't think you're weighting:
Pride in America. Making shit here again. Building stuff. Being proud to be an American.
Im not a fan of tariffs but I've yet to see the mercurial shake-up do any lasting economic damage. Economic indicators look at helluva a lot better than they did 6 months ago.
I have had zero issues with supply chain and most of my shit comes from Asia. Its my business to stay on top of supply chains and I just don't see what you see in that regards.
I think you're disappointed, as I am, but I think you're also uncharacteristically overreacting.
Plus the "right track/wrong track" poll just hit 50% for the first time in the polls history.
We shall see.
i don't know what indicators you're looking at, but ISM is collapsing on new orders while prices spike. home prices down in 61% of counties. when the sugar high of the inventory surge wears off, this is going to get ugly.
the bullwhip has not hit yet.
"right track wrong track" is not gonna survive that. people think tariffs work. they're going to be pissed when they don't.
Ill tell you what im looking at, gato, I've somehow been profitable for 25 years straight through some really shitty times by being ahead of the curve.
This isn't anywhere near some of those rough patches. I've looked at all the data, the same data that missed the tech bust, the subprime meltdown, etc. Im not hanging my hat on that.
If you want to have an in depth economic discussion we can take it offline because I got a feeling its gonna bore everyone.
Im not worried in the short-term. Im worried about the macro in the intermediate term.
Darn. I wish you had kept it online. I respect you both a lot, and as an economic idiot, I might have been able to learn something.
If you respect those two, you are probably not an economic idiot.
Same!!
But why shouldn't home prices be down? They've been inflated, in many places hyperinflated, for 4+ years for no good reason.
I'm sticking with you, you have a record of getting things right.
You know what could be "good" news is if Trump is on the Epstein list and gets impeached and then JD takes over.
Lmao. But it wouldn't disappoint me.
What indicators to look at? How about the stock market. The S&P 500 is within 2% of an all-time high. The yield curve looks healthy. Inflation indicators have come down. Trump's energy policies are very anti-inflationary. Home prices are still being hurt by the spike in mortgage rates that occurred in the last few years. Blue state and local government policies are also hurting housing markets.
You were a fan of the tariffs a month ago. What happened?
Gato has been adamantly opposed to them from the beginning.
"revisit in a year".
Yep.
Why I've screenshot several comments...
Review in '26.
I am in supply chain, too, and I haven't seen supply chain issues in terms of getting stuff, except for bloody rare earth magnets, but we have seen pretty significant price increases, which unfortunately our customers have not been keen on accepting. If tariffs stay low we will be fine for the most part I expect, but if they spike back up to 125% on China and, well really any higher on India, we are going to have problems. If we can't get magnets we will be out of business by mid fall. There are some non-China options there, but honestly if 90+% of the market is going to try and reorient to snatch up 10% of the market, prices will be nuts and we might be hosed even in that case.
I think a lot of this is going to be like steel in 2018. I actually used it as an opportunity by delaying projects until the market settled.
In other words, I'd book the deals at 10% extra GP (and everyone understood the slight increase because they were adjusting as well) and then waited until prices shored up.
Now that's a horrible strategy if you think prices will stay high, but I don't think shortages from supply chain issues will keep prices artificially high mainly because of Trump.
Hes not an ideologue and the minute he thinks "artificial" becomes the new normal he'll back track and claim victory.
See his first term.
In business myself in 2001 and 2007. Those were rug pulls. This is not the same, but gov spending is masking a lot of problems.
Yup.
Government spending IS the problem. But not to the people in government; they don't fix problems, they subsidize them.
The problems they created are their incentive for spending more to find "solutions".
Unfortunately those tariffs didn't do the steel industry any good. I hope the effects on other industries don't follow suit.
They did for the "survivors" in the steel industry.
Unfortunate but true
Which survivors? Seems like the industry in general took it in the pants, closing mills down left and right and prices dropping as companies switched to aluminum. US Steel was going to be bought (although that is probably good; Nippon Steel seems to really have their act together.) Maybe it worked out for someone, but it was one of those things that had remarkably bad outcomes for the very companies it was supposed to help.
The eye sees all, but the mind shows us what we want to see.
William Shakespeare
Nah. Having skin in the game changes that dynamic. If it doesn't you lose.
I got a dog in the fight, but it ain't a dog that let's my emotions (particularly with Trump) get between what my mind is processing and what my eyes WANT to see.
Good for you, but that is, in my experience rare in these times. As to trump, I wouldn't work for him nor would I hire him. "Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well."
Gore Vidal
"As to trump, I wouldn't work for him nor would I hire him".
You and me both.
I just don't see the tariffs doing any meaningful damage either now or in the near future because, even if they work (and they won't long-term) , Trump doesn't have the nerve to stand by them for any meaningful amount of time.
I just think this is all an exercise in making a tempest in a teapot because of "violations" of libertarian ideals. I never expected Trump to act like a libertarian, because hes not and never has been one.
So im surprised that anyone is surprised that Trump started wielding them like a toddler with a hand grenade. I mean, after all n he spent 9 years telegraphing his stance on tariffs. I think all of gatos points are fair criticism, I just don't share them to the degree with which he does.
I am a pragmatic libertarian and that gets me in trouble because the most difficult people to find common ground with are the very people who share the same ideals as myself. In fact just mentioning being a pragmatic libertarian is a violation of libertarian ideals. And thats why they never get shit done; they're so stuck on ideals they can't see (or can't find) when they have (or may) common ground. To some extent common ground itself is a violation of libertarian ideals. I want the same thing gato does. Im just am not as optimistic on the time frame (nor the vessel - Trump himself) that is required to get to where we want.
Why?
Not necessarily because of Trump, but precisely for the people gato (and he's right) thinks we need to reach:
The middle.
Immediate and sweeping structural changes would not be accepted by those people. It would be viewed as radical, and would "scare" them far worse than any of the damage that could be done with tariffs.
It just feels like we're throwing the baby out before we've even turned the water on.
It's still early, this has a long way to go. My guess is trump is/was just a temporary employee, we'll see. "It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience."
Niccolo Machiavelli
Tangent, but you dropped a truth-bomb, Ryan:
"And thats why they never get shit done; they're so stuck on ideals they can't see (or can't find) when they have (or may) common ground. To some extent common ground itself is a violation of libertarian ideals."
Replace libertarian with Marxist, and you have the 1970s Reds down to a tee. Realisation set in during the 1980s and the Wall coming down in '89 (sometimes I still feel hung over from the partying!) nailed it:
Pragmatic first, ideologue-istic second.
And look at them now, three decades after they went pragmatic. Imagine what US libertarians could achieve if and when they accept that!
I hope this all blows over and it's just the drama of the week. I fear that you're right, and the biggest opportunity in my voting lifetime got blown to smithereens.
I want an American Javier Milei, not this garbage.
Voted Trump 3X always with eyes wide open. Without STRUCTURAL change, nothing he does is anything more than Deck Chairs on the Titanic. On that score his entire first administration was a washout. Trump 2.0 looked to be the Biggest Winner. But he is once again surrounding himself with and aligning with SWAMP creatures. Mike Johnson is the most loathesome creature in DC, but he seems to direct Trump who shows virtually no leadership in using his Bully Pulpit and negotiating skills to get Congress to enact the legislative / structural change necessary to re-shape our Federal Government towards the MAGA vision.
I'm 100% Team Elon and I will make political donations to support Thomas Massie if Trump carries through with his threats to Primary Massie (good luck with that Mike Johnson wet dream).
Agreed. Like El Gato, for a short time I believed that Trump had learnt his lessons and had finally leant the art of picking the right people. That honeymoon didn't last long. Well, at least he ended the Ukraine war in 24 hours. Oh, wait...
Agreed
I want to knock Johnson's glasses of his smug puss every time he is in front of a camera.
Doesn’t Johnson kind of remind you of Alfred E Newman? Maybe it’s just me, I must be MAD!
I'LL SECOND THE MOTION! You're spot on! Based on his record there was no reason to expect much from trump. But Musk and his associates gave me reason for hope. But they've lost control of trump.
I don't know. This started after Elon threw a multi day fit over not having enough cuts to the bill, mainly by not letting the tax cuts expire. Trump wants to keep them and grow the economy to make up the difference. I think it's unfortunate that Trump is taking the bait, but for days now Elon has been losing his shit. I think this will blow over.
trump just publicly threatened to end elon's government contracts and elon just said trump is on the epstein list.
i fear we're past easy "blow over" stages.
Respectfully disagree, although maybe that's just my hope. Elon spent days calling Trump a traitor and saying Trump will destroy the country, etc. Not a fan of threatening his contracts but seems like a Trumpian way of reminding Elon of the administrations favors to his space program. Then Elon goes way overboard with a pedophile accusation. That's why I think this will actually blow over. It's just so over the top, with Elon going all in with an autistic rant. Who knows. I hope I'm right on this one Gato.
Predictions are really difficult, particularly about the future! I'm with you, though, Jen.
The future ain't what it used to be.
Jen may have called it, today it was an exchange of brief conciliatory tweets, maybe the worst is behind us. More jesuit theatre maybe? Check the gematria.
Oh please, Trump is the most investigated person on the planet. He's not on any list. If he was it would have come out 10 years ago! He flew on a plane for a short hop back to NY. It is well known/documented that he banned Epstein from Mar a Lago.
Exactly right.
There are several reasons that the Epstein list suddenly vanished (remember when Bondi was going to release that?). The first is that Epstein entrapped many people on "our" side as well as Dems; and secondly, it was a Mossad sting operation, and revealing that would have hurt our masters in Tel Aviv. As for Trump, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he was there.
Steghorn21, landing on "wouldn't surprise me a bit if he was on there" is complete leftie.
Trump isn't perfect, but it aint hard to spot the pedo's and that isn't him. Sorry to disappoint. Now get back to your giddy piling on.
I may well be wrong. The best solution, therefore, is to do what he promised before being elected: release the Epstein files in their entirety and let's see who was really there.
If only it were that simple.
I voted for DJT thrice, but it isn't hard to see from the weird comments he made about his own daughter, and his cavalier attitude about backstage access to his Pageants, that he had a major problem with lasciviousness... however he does have a certain moralistic fiber that might have kept him from taking the elite pedo compromat-control bait. He also was schooled by Roy Cohn, whose secret filming and political blackmail skills were legendary. And Nixon, who was not a "player" sexually but knew the insider ropes as well as anyone. Watergate was actually a plan to fetch the D's black book of compromised swampers.
Another possible reason is that Trump is using the list to keep foreign allies (e.g. pretended allies) in line.
Quite possible, Mark.
Wow 😮
"As for Trump, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he was there." It would surprise me many bits.
The flight logs say no (except one or a few Florida to NYC runs when Trump's plane was down for maintenance). Again, DJT learned the ropes from Roy Cohn and Tricky D, he knew how things "work" backstage by his 30's.
If Elon is right about the Epstein list nothing else about Trump matters. If Elon is lying, nobody who isn’t on his payroll will give a damn about Elon. This isn’t a schoolyard brawl where all the kids line on one side or another. The only thing that matters is the truth.
One other thing… that Ukrainian strike on the Russian bomber fleet is a matter of consequence. These petty personality meltdowns are not. One of those things seriously can be the end of the world and the other most definitely is not.
Guess what?
Trump is listed in the Epstein files because he helped the prosecutor pursuing Epstein. 😂😂😂
I almost pee’d my pants.
Elon participated in an epic dem butt hurt joke, along with Trump.
I wonder if the Senate RINOs who are rooting for WWIII think the Russian strike on Kiev was an unfair reply to the Ukrainian drone strike? Your last sentence is SPOT ON!
Those fools still think regime change and access to Ivan's $70+ Trillion in natural resources is a no brainer. If it comes to that, Space Force better have the Nicky Tesla quantum super-rayguns warmed up and on standby, or those Ruskie truck-mobile and sub launched missiles are going to leave a mark.
The thing i like about you the most is you are not afraid to be wrong.
I usually make it a practice before making major predictions, when I have skin in the game (or before i put skin in the game), to go through an exercise where I ask myself if im wrong in X amount of time (in this case 6 months) from now what mental gymnastics would i have to go through to "prove" im "right" AND what would have to change (facts on the ground) in that time frame for my original analysis to be wrong.
There's a subtle difference between the two and I've found that keeps my "metronome" balanced.
Obviously you've thought it through and feel strongly about it, but i wonder if that exercise might prevent the pendulum from flying of its axis.
Im not being a smartass but I'd be interested in your thought process if you are wrong 6 months from now. All im saying is the further that pendulum gets away from the axis the wilder the gymnastics have to be in order to justify the initial position.
It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
Yogi Berra
Did trump cancel Starlink and space contracts? That’s the money shot for Elon. Not EV’s.
That “easy” was never going to be, given the massive egos involved. IDK what to think about anyone or anything anymore
yes rumour goes. and not rumour, there seems to be evidence Kennedy is, too. We all know that the uppeties will not ever be arrested, even if those are not on the list. But they're all buddies.
SPOT ON! Perhaps, a month or so ago James Carvelle said trump's administration was about to implode. What did James know and when. As you point out the Jacobins know how to manipulate trump. To which I'd add: " No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Two enormous egos & each is used to getting in the last word. Maybe it will never end...?
The First Rule of Trump is: I DO NOT LOSE.
Things are a little too complicated for that kind of rule.
Occam's razor: Trump and Elon want the democrats to SCREAM for the Epstein files to be released. So maybe it all boiled down to that single now deleted X post. We'll see if they take the bait and run with it... it sounds like they were gumming it cautiously yesterday.
I'm old enough to remember Elon getting crosswise with some cave divers who did go on to save a bunch of kids their way. He also nearly got into a similar spot with MAGA over the H1Bs. He's demonstrated a stubborn volatility in the past but also he's one to be able to change his mind and admit a mistake. I do not consider him a political leader. He doesn't have the temperament. He's too honest about his passions to a fault. I would not expect he could pull of a viable party split. If I recall he did apologize to the cave diver who he also called a pedo, so we'll see.
Elon is on the spectrum. He has no brain-to-mouth filter.
It would if someone could get Trump to shut up.
Trump is an entertainer. You might as well have asked any other entertainer to shut up. Ain’t gonna happen.
will take 2 tons of duck tape and still...
Never happen.
And I'm fine with that. It calls for unconditional love.
Trump's been pretty restrained. Not perfect, but considering what accusation Musk made, he's done well.
Horrible take. Right track, wrong track poll just hit 50% right track for the first time in that poll’s history. The American people largely like what’s happening. You are way off-base and seem to have an unhealthy case of TDS.
seen the new orders drop and the price pressure rise in both services and manufacturing?
wait until the economy falls apart this summer and fall.
Real income up .8 vs expectation of .3 last month. Inflation keeps falling, nearly the 2% target. Doomsayers keep saying, "just wait", like a meteorologist who constantly predicts rain, is constantly wrong, until one day it finally rains, when he responds, preening, as if he was always right.
so, that's a no on ISM data?
GDP shrank 0.3% in q1 and that had a 100bp tailwind from data center builds.
the trade policy bullwhip will hit in q3
Hilarious. GDP "shrank" due to accounting. Companies front ran the tariffs and imported like never before, moving inventory to the USA before they'd be forced to pay more. Mark those to average and you have a healthy GDP gain. If/when that extra inventory makes its way through the economy, it would actually act in a stimulant fashion, far from recessionary. Finally, tariffs and trade deals are still in flux. If/when there is more good news on those fronts, it will further add a stimulus effect to purchase orders, capital expenditures, etc. Additionally, if tax cuts pass, including no tax on tips / OT, etc, that will give more citizens a feeling of being "flush", likely further increasing spending. We shall see, but the future is far from a negative certainty.
Sure hope you're right Ethan. Good comments.
You don't even know what the trade policy will be. No one knows - not even Trump.
They said this during Biden and we pulled through. The government is not the economy. We the People are. I don’t care about Elon. Never did and I never will.
Well said, Nick.
Could it be there is a large game being played behind the scenes? "This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept."
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Ew.
The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.
Carroll Quigley
Be careful of fake headlines. Biden's administration was falsely showing growth (or lower losses) and "adjusting" the numbers downwards later. I think people are falling for falsely inflated numbers - not by the administration, but by the press, so that they get everyone's expectations up too high relative to real life.
This is a possibility, and I'm keenly aware of it. Yet, I haven't seen evidence of it yet. There is always, with anything, the possibility that data are fraudulent or wrong.
They're trying to inflate a "positive economy" balloon that is unrealistic, so that more people will be disappointed when it "pops" before the midterms. And it won't be an overt pop. (there will be one, though) This will be the simmering discontent they're fomenting to give people the illusion that the economy is good. But Take a look at the number of jobs being lost. Oh, sorry... look at how many cars, boats, RV's, household goods and other junk is being sold out there and people aren't buying... I overheard a few people at church saying they've lost their jobs. People aren't job hopping as much. People are increasingly complaining about the difficulty in finding jobs (AI is a big factor here - real or perceived). Having just had AI whip me up a program in a language I barely know, and do a task I had no idea how to do proved to be amazingly good (despite the numerous purposeful attempts by chatGPT to delete data when I had no intention of doing so.). Other people having good (and sometimes dubious) results from chatgpt is causing a lot of rethinking of employment needs. There's still a lot of hype out there in AI land, but people's hair is on fire about it.
There will be a number of "economic" indicators that will try to highlight the negative aspects of the Trump administration's effort to combat a purposeful and planned globalist crushing of our country.
Sure, every issue in the economy isn't suddenly magically solved. The AI issue is real and it will replace people's jobs, whether Trump or anyone else is president. We are entering "brave new world" territory and will have to adapt and adjust, even as the overall productivity increases. But that has nothing to do with Trump. Unless you truly want him to turn into a dictator and attempt to ban AI or ban it from replacing anyone's job (which would be folly).
"Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts."
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
The American people understand what is and is not in their best interests far better than politicians do.
Do you mean the same people who elected those politicians??
Lol
Did the "people" elect Alzheimer's joe? "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes."
Joseph Stalin
Yep. It's almost always the lesser of two evils.
Inflation is expected to rise in the near term, frontpage WSJ, this week.
"expected to rise", "experts say". Did you learn nothing from covid? Inflation has been falling, 180 degrees from what they've been predicting.
factor in the tariffs, the price of silver has broken out, add a fed rate cute 3-4 months out, which would add liquidity to the economy and inflation will rise. COVID was a fraud. Inflation is a bit easier to track. Just take the .gov number and essentially double it as it is Always in the interest of the government to report falling inflation to the masses, except when they can't, like under FJB when rising gasoline prices exploded the price of other consumer staples.
I'm not seeing any inflation. Amazon reports minimal, insignificant price spikes. Energy prices have dropped significantly as well and THAT is the key input into all business.
bad cat, STOP IT !!! YOU ARE HURTING YOUR CREDIBILITY. The stock market and bond market look 6 to 9 months ahead, and have not detected the calamity you're pushing.
This sounds a little like "Just wait two weeks!"
Amazon CEO said two weeks ago that nothing had changed with purchasing demands. I agree it should be off but was not as of two weeks ago.
There is also a thing I call TWS: Trump worship syndrome. I voted for Trump. I don't hate him or love him. I'm just crossing my fingers that something good comes out of the next 4 years. But I'm not betting on it. TDS is sooo real and sooo psychotic. But so it TWS. We need to be able to see two sides to everything without going insane.
I'm not worshipping anyone, save God. I see Trump's faults, but I'm not blinded by them. I'm not voting for a personality. I'm voting for policies. Data say the policies are working well. The American people, 50% of whom say we are on the right track for the first time in the poll's history, agree. I look at data and policies, not personalities.
That's good. I'm not saying YOU have TWS, I just pointed out that it exists.
I think you're right, though I've seen little evidence of it. I see far far more evidence of TDS daily.
Mass deportations of illegals? Epstein files? Perp walks for Deep Staters? Promises made, promises not kept.
Definitely with you on Epstein files. However, they need additional resources for mass deportations, unless they want to repurpose the entire FBI. Those funds are to be found in...you guessed it...the BBB. Perp walks might still be coming. Plenty of time left. It's only been just over four months. Have to build cases and they've done so much else that's outstanding so far, I'm willing to allow leeway there. That said, they are bringing charges against a number of malcontents, including Tish James.
They need to deport a lot of people before the next census shows up and those numbers get goosed again in bad ways that even the Supreme Court is unwilling to undo.
Amen. I still find it unbelievable that we allow congressional apportionment based on the presence of illegal aliens. Inexcusable and creates perverse incentives.
Interestingly, I just now had a chat session with chatGPT on the census, and how the 2020 census was manipulated. It OVERLOOKED the bias in counting in red vs blue states, and continued to attribute undercounting in red states to local policies there that "scared" undocumented workers.
BIAS much??? I pointed out the omission given the importance of the apportionment issue. I've gotten tired of validating apologies from chatGPT. I've had it previously disobey specific instructions to NOT introduce negative coding, and it kept trying to, and apologizing each time. After 7-8 separate instances where it violated it, and apologized each time... Sorry. there's a negative ghost in the machine.
Interesting find. This definitely aligns with the bias I see that OpenAI has in other areas as well. I'm curious if other AIs would replicate this bias or not with this particular issue of the 2020 census.
Will you give the new administration some bloody time? A lot has happened behind the scenes. Promises already kept.
With trump it's always the same: "After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done."
H. L. Mencken
"Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the future... We watch our experts read the entrails of statistical tables and graphs the way the ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken."
Eric Hoffer I'm going with el gato malo, he was spot on in the Covid Hysteria and he is in this as well. tump has a record and it's not good!
Agree, in principle. However, even if politicians tailored their policies towards this poll, in order to give the American people what they want than we end up with a country more on the right track. It is a GOOD thing to want to represent the populace and have them think you are doing a good job. It is also exceptionally rare. Hence, the importance of a majority of Americans thinking the country is on the right track, for the first time in the poll's history.
Or: "Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few."
Aldous Huxley
The quote doesn't really seem relevant. The poll has existed for decades. Only now has it ever hit 50%. This from one of the most reputable and accurate pollsters around. As well, the reason most people don't trust polls is because they lean left. If that's the case here, than even more than 50% of the populace thinks we are on the right track. Simply giving quotes from famous individuals isn't really a relevant reply.
You may believe what you like! "I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to."
W. C. Fields
The Aldous quote is perpetually true. He crafted it decades back after all. So the fact that people can be manipulated is hardly new. What IS new is that 50% of the polled American public thinks the country is on the right track, for the first time in the poll’s history.
What happened to never believing polls?
This is Rasmussen, one of the most accurate pollers over the last decade plus.
I'm sticking with Talleyrand: "Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts."
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
The American people understand what is and is not in their best interests far better than politicians do.
This is theater, kayfabe.
And right now, on cue, Dems are demanding the Epstein files release.
Given Musk and Thiel's IT resources is it possible they know the content of those files?
Wow. So, you’ve caved too.
Amazing.
Elon has had an absolute meltdown over what? The Big Beautiful Bill?
Yeah, right.
You spoke much about Trumps ego, but little of Elon’s.
Seems they’re cut from the exact same cloth to me.
But it seems you’ve decided to throw the baby out with bathwater.
What a weak and fickle people we have become.
Pathetic.
The Big Beautiful Bill is an obscene piece of shit.
Its a reconciliation bill..... only for taxes - not for spending cuts. The addition to the debt ceiling is based on the CBO numbers, which do not take account of growth, etc. The spending cuts are coming up in the rescission bills - recognizing DOGE - and they are separate so that they can pass with a simple majority - not the 60 vote threshold.
Here is a good explanation:
https://michaelsmith.substack.com/p/big-beautiful-bills
Hear!! Hear! You are 100% Correct!
Practically the second Trump was elected everyone expected the whole world to change on a dime. Every one wanted instantaneous gratification.
Well, real life doesn’t work that way, and government especially. It is a gross sausage factory and a most unpleasant and corrupt environment.
This battle will be long, hard and ugly, and with all kinds of setbacks, compromises, and disappointments.
But failure is not an option, and grabbing one’s toys, throwing them all around the room, and quitting is for cowards and the weak. A
Very well said, Suzie. I fear that the clash of egos is responsible for this massive Musk Pout. Elon was brought in to handle the DOGE element, not to dictate administrative U.S. policy.
I have also been curious about the DOGE players ... it seems that, on many occasions, either Elon or one of his amazing whiz-kids were the first to break the news on the appalling things they were uncovering. I wondered then - and wonder now - if Trump had given the green light for that to happen. Perhaps he felt it prudent to let them "brag" and stay enthusiastic. But, given his ego, I would have thought that all public announcements would first come from Trump.
At any rate, some definite resentments on both sides are sure burnin' down the barn. I so hope this has some halfway decent conclusion.
This is exactly right, thanks for posting both your summary and the link. And much easier to get the simple majority "stuff" passed, to boot
Not true. Check out Charlie Kirk’s X post on 50 good things about the bill. There is plenty good about this bill. And it’s not a spending bill.
It is my suspicion that there is much activity behind the scenes. "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
Benjamin Disraeli
Amen ~ there's an understatement!!
And I'll raise you one: " I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
Woodrow Wilson"
Hah ~ rather an ironic statement coming from Wilson, whose preferred government was one run by “experts” rather than elected representatives.
Well, he was an academic. "An expert is someone who articulates the needs of those in power."
Henry A. Kissinger And I think he discovered this: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
I agree with half of your analysis. The other half? I've said before that autistic geniuses need sharp powerful managers to keep them tethered to their proper useful space.
Neither of these guys are *stable* geniuses but--and it's a hard contest but still--Elon is far more unstable and the viciousness of his tweet regarding Trump and the Epstein list shows what happens when the richest toddler in the world has a tantrum.
Perhaps this will though further my own dream of both parties being irrevocably destroyed and perhaps what you hope for will happen--a third party filled with not crazies but clear-eyed voters who want the best for this country.
And Trump didn’t have to respond.
No the way the guy is built, had to respond! The Jacobins know how to push his buttons . Saul would have loved him: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
Saul Alinsky
Agree with this. I was actually a little excited when Trump got elected. I hoped he might be just a little bit like Milei. It has not happened and is getting worse than I expected. There are some good moves on energy policy and the culture wars but vanishingly little else. I'm extremely pissed that Trump is supporting the SALT deductions which will benefit the Dems.
yeah, he had it all laid out and instead decided to run off in other directions. the alliance that could have been formed here would have been formidable.
left alone, the MAGA populists do not have the chops to be effective.
they'll howl "betrayal" but they are the ones who broke the deal.
I am also deeply disappointed about the failure to follow through on the promise of major reforms and deregulation at the FDA.
Patience, grasshopper. Its only been a few months. They barely have their leaders chosen and in place.
I hope you are right. Perhaps I am being too impatient here. I will return to walking on rice paper without leaving a trace.
There's a reason Trump rails against Putin. Putin is what Trump aspires to be: a leader who took his country out of the depths of despair and made it great again.
You think Russia is great? It is doing a fairly remarkable job of holding its own with the Ukraine invasion although if its military was great it would have won by now. By what other measures do you see Russia as great? Its economy grew strongly from 2000 to 2008 (partly due to high commodity prices but also due to reforms). But from 2008, Russia has lagged Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
I worked in Eastern Europe just after the wall came down, Max. Russia was in an appalling state as Yeltsin handed over the nation's wealth to oligarchs and Harvard Boys. Infant mortality skyrocketed while life expectancy dropped. Russia's middle class vanished and the poverty was indescribable. Putin turned it around in one of the most astonishing renaissances in modern history. As for the current situation, sure, Russia isn't Florida but it's doing pretty well. GDP was over 4% in 2024 despite the heaviest sanctions in history which forced the Russians to turn to new markets and strengthen ties with Brics. On the military front, I suppose it depends on how you define winning. I have no doubt that the Russkies have made a lot of mistakes and that the Ukies have put up a good fight. However, the main aim of the campaign was to demilitarise Ukraine. Would you say that the Ukrainian military is in a healthy state today? They've lost a million casualties, their best men are dead and they've lost the Donbass forever, with Novorossya almost certain to follow. As a bonus point, they've also shown NATO to be a paper tiger and are doing a great job of widening the fault lines in the EU. Finally, unlike our sterile and divided societies in the West, Russia has a relatively cohesive social structure and a proud history. Perhaps we should lay off the Russophobia and concentrate our efforts on saving our own dying societies.
All good points Steg. The West has been trying to dismantle Russia and steal its stuff for centuries and fails repeatedly. Napoleon and Hitler the most recent. Starmer seems ready to be next and bring out the light brigade for another outing, trying to take over the Black Sea again where they have no business.
Also since the other economies mentioned as such powerhouses, like Estonia and Latvia, have gotten essentially a free ride on providing for their own defenses, either in or near NATO protection…so the comparison is not quite on.
I can testify to how down and out Russia was after the World Bank, the IMF and sundry looted the corpse of the USSR, aided and abetted by the Russian mobs.
People up North here would sell commodities to Russians - toilet paper, Western smokes, canned foods, women's sanitary products - grocery store stuff basically in exchange for diesel, guns and ammo and such.
Border security was a complete joke during the 1995-2005 period, and the Russians were so desperate the friend of mine who was involved in the smuggling felt ashamed at times to charge them anything.
I feel sorry for them and the Ukrainians both. Neither people wanted the war.
Took him longer than four months, though. And Trump doesn't generally rail against Putin. They're allies and friends.
To me it seemed the only hope was if Musk et. a. could control trump. Goldwater summed trump up: "The fellow has absolutely no principles."Money and gall" is all he has."
Barry Goldwater
Agree with the trump commentary and I’m mostly with you on musk….BUT I have huge reservations about musk bc of thiel/palantir.
And don’t forget Vance’s association with Thiel.
That is definitely a red flag. Musk is no angel. However, on DOGE, he is right and Trump is wrong.
Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks this is classic kayfabe.
You're not. I'm not sure what all the desired endgames are, but getting Pam Bondi over whatever has caused her not to release the Epstein files seems to be one of them.
Wow, 4D chess. How about this: Trump is the chief executive of the US. He orders Bondi to release the Epstein files immediately or she gets sacked. That's what leaders are supposed to do.
Nah, it's regular 3D chess. Because if it's really a ruse, it's one so obvious that only the intended targets won't figure it out.
Exactly! "When you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damned secret, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."
Harry S. Truman
"Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks this is classic kayfabe."
no, i'm relieved to see someone else does, too.
if regular people can't divulge a company's secrets in boiler plate employee contracts, i can't imagine that musk can say what doge was privy to without losing everything he's got in the U.S.
i'm wondering what we're being distracted FROM again. MAHA and the shots? what?
Oh for the bygone halcyon glory days of the neocons and the Bush junta and the fake "Reagan Republicans"
No thanks. The neocons made a leftie of me for eighteen years. I'll take Trump and Musk any day.
Brah, that text there is dripping with sarcasm LOL
it was a sad attempt at being ironic on my part
Sorry. I figured it was irony, but it choked me just enough that I had to respond literally.
Always careful to offer advice or comment to obviously very smart people. You need to read this though.
Trump has ONE main objective, it's the central pillar of the entire MAGA movement, he's made no secret about it and mentions it every single time he speaks. The American Economy and The American Worker. THOSE are his priorities, just as Musk's priorities are getting to Mars and doing WHATEVER he has to do to make that happen.
Now you see the inevitable conflict that was ALWAYS coming between the two men. Elon thinks he needs a zero tariff world with unlimited H-1 B visa allotments to fuel his need for cheap engineering talent and global export and import of EVERY element needed to manufacture his vision. TRUMP has watched the political elites(who Musk supported EXTENSIVELY, until he realized that they were going to CONFISCATE his entire empire) destroy the manufacturing sector of America and with it OUR MIDDLE CLASS!
Now, losing the middle-class may not seem like a big thing to all of the highly intelligent super producers out there in the world. But, as it turns out: IT'S THE ONLY THING!
The middle-class is literally what made America into a super power and the world's largest economy. The ability for a guy working the assembly line at Ford Motor Company to have five kids, a nice house and the ability to PAY FOR ALL OF THAT with one job created The American Empire. I know this because that is literally the story of my fathers family. He went from a summer job at Ford to his MS in Engineering and a corporate career to his own family and children. ONE GENERATION!
That conveyor belt of upward economic mobility IS THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF AMERICA! It's where the Michael Dell's, Bill Gates' and most of the other game changers in American business come from. It's probably where most of the DOGE guys came from.
Musk fundamentally has a vision, Trump fundamentally has to FIX a corrupt and intentionally subverted American Economy. The clash was inevitable. In fact the most informed people on the internet predicted it even BEFORE the inauguration(The wisest said Musk and Trump would fall out by April 2026 at the latest). Musk is laser focused and obsessed with his vision and his personal ethics. Sadly, Elon does NOT consider the morass of perfidy, venal behavior and outright mendacity which characterizes EVERYTHING in American politics. Trump knows those things better than any other human alive at this point. Trump has been in the crosshairs of that Leviathan for over a decade now. Musk has an idealistic view of politics, he thinks Trump can just FIX a hundred years of planned subversion in one go. That is astoundingly naive. Since Elon is NOT naive YOU must be forced to consider that all of Elon's motives might not be as idealistic and pure as one would hope. Elon's got a dog in the fight and he's DEFINITELY got selfish interests. THAT is what caused this rift. Frankly its far, far better for it to happen now. It gives Trump time to clean things up before the 2026 mid-terms. Elon needs to calm down and realize that Trump has far more support than he does, among American citizens. Musk has done many great things. Hopefully he can contain his tech overlord ambitions enough to let Trump do the greatest thing of all; FIX THE AMERICAN ECONOMY! It's really all that matters. Trump wins or our nation dies. It's that simple.
This is what he says are his priorities. Because in real life his priorities are Israel, keep RINOs like Lindsey Graham in congress and tax cuts for old folks like him while everyone else pays the most cruel tax ever: Inflation.
This reply is just simply not based in reality. Inflation is DOWN, it's currently at it's lowest point in 4 years. Biden DOUBLED the cost of everything over his miserable 4 year term. The worst inflation record since Carter in the 70's btw. Trump's first term is a very visible indicator of his intentions and of their effectiveness. Before the giant Globalist Covid scam, in 2019 our economy was on fire. Wages were up ACROSS the board, energy was cheap, food was cheap, Trump had actually created DEFLATION in the retail market for most Americans. I suggest you actually find the facts before posting opinions on here. You are making yourself look foolish. I can't really blame you, because all media narratives FAIL TO MENTION the facts I just gave you, but that does not mean you can't go find them yourself. I did.
If Trump hadn't spent like a drunken sailor on Covidmania, the deficit would be much smaller.
But Biden Harris Walz are worse.
true on harris walz. no argumwent there.
but this could have been so much more.
now likely to be a failed presidency doubling down on an irredeemable congress.
It may become that, but you of all cats know how things can suddenly change and that today's wild drama may easily be old news tomorrow.
True. Past is prologue. That's another reason the Scamdemic sucked. It was obvious that it would cause lasting harm.
A missed opportunity. The Jacobins were surprised in "24" but they never give up. As you point out they understand how to manipulate trump. "
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it."
George Orwell